Wedding Weight

Chapter 3 - Results Guaranteed

At Robyn's insistence, she and Brian hadn't moved in together, and wouldn't until they were legally married. To her, sharing a place would feel tawdry and meaningless, absent a genuine lifelong commitment.

In that sense, she had a traditional view of marriage. 

But only in that sense. 

She had thought nothing of letting Brian finger her on their first date and sleeping with him on their third. And in the subsequent year-and-a-half before he proposed, they had engaged in almost every sexual act they could think of, except those involving a third person or featured prominently in German fetish porn.

On this night they were at Robyn's house and they didn't have sex at all. Brian's overtures were not rebuffed, exactly, but not reciprocated, either. Rather than try to overcome her apparent indifference, he decided to go to sleep.

"Well, good night, hon," Brian said. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips and she made barely any effort to kiss him back. 

"Good night," she said, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

He hesitated before asking, "What's up?"

"Nothing," she said and he chose to accept her answer. It had been a long day and he was very tired. He settled back into his pillow and closed his eyes.

He had nearly drifted off to sleep when Robyn said, "I'm thinking of going on a diet."

Brian was not the smartest person in the world. He was not even the smartest person in this bed. But if there's one thing he learned from his first marriage, it's to avoid getting sucked into a conversation about weight.

So he kept his eyes closed and remained very still, hoping that the danger would pass. It was the same strategy he used as a child when he imagined that his room was crawling with monsters. It seemed to work, but the monsters weren't real and his fiancée was.

"Did you hear what I said?" she asked, with a hint of irritation. "I'm thinking of going on a diet."

He opened his eyes. He had no idea what she wanted to hear. "OK," he said noncommittally and hoped that was enough.

It wasn't.

"What do you think about that?" she persisted.

Brian was walking through a mine field now. He had to step lightly. "I think..." he began. "That you should do... whatever makes you happy." There was an expectant silence and Brian continued, "I don't think you're fat, if that's what you're asking." He immediately realized that he had made a huge mistake. A rookie mistake.

"That wasn't what I was asking," she said acidly and turned away from him.

"Robyn, come on," he pleaded, pressing his body against hers. "I just proposed to you yesterday. Would I have done that if I didn't think you're perfect the way you are?" Brian smiled to himself. Nailed it!

"All right," Robyn said, backing down in the face of his unassailable logic. "Thank you." She didn't sound angry any more, but she didn't sound mollified, either.

——————————————-

"Welcome to Tenacity for Women!"

Robyn had made her appointment with Debbie over the phone. Based on Debbie's effervescent and encouraging voice, Robyn pictured a slender, energetic blonde with a can-do attitude, perky boobs and an impossibly white smile. And she was right. Except Debbie was Asian-American with bone-straight black hair, which raised the possibility that Robyn's beauty ideal was just a touch racist.