Page 19 Close to the bon

                              CLOSE TO THE BONE.                                       2-1-10

                                                              ROY GARDE

My brother, the doctor, introduced me to her. Well, no. That’s not exactly right so let me start again.

My brother, the doctor, pimped for her.

That’s closer to the truth.

He came over to visit me mainly to get me to go and see her at her home.

I must say, on his behalf, that when he got around to it he was up front about the whole thing – astonishingly so.

Our conversation, after we both had a bottle of beer to suck on, went like this –

“Wow! This’s good stuff, bro. It goes down real well, and you’re right, it tastes good at room temperature. Who’d have thunk it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I found that out on my trip to London last year. Before I went there I thought, like everybody else, that the Brits are crazy to drink warm beer but I soon got educated. They don’t drink it like that because they don’t know how to cool it but because they know how to brew it so that it tastes right exactly as it comes out of the barrels that are down in the cellar. ‘Course, it won’t work with Bud or Coors or Miller, and the rest of them, because they need cooling due to having been brewed that way. In fact, this Boston Ale tastes good until the temperature gets up to around eighty degrees, you know?”

“Interesting. I’m going to remember that. But, listen bro, I came over to ask a favor of you. Let me lay it out.

“First, let me say that I wouldn’t dream of asking anybody else to do this for me – it’s so unethical that if it gets around I’ll almost certainly lose my license to practice medicine and, probably, be tarred and feathered and run out of town too! So, in light of that, I want you to promise that – whether you agree to do it or not – you’ll never repeat what I’m going to ask you to do.”

“I promise but why me?”

“Because you’re the only one I know who’s genuinely pussy-struck.”

“ ‘Pussy-struck!’ Aren’t we getting a bit overly genteel here? You didn’t call it that not so long ago.”

“Well, no, but that’s because I’ve mellowed out lately. But listen, you’ve got to admit that it’s a hundred per cent true. Why else have you been divorced – what is it? – five times?”

“It’s three times and there were many different reasons for all three.”

“Many different women for all three you mean. But anyway, I remember you telling me once that getting new, uh, well, new pussy, let’s stay with that word, was more important to you than being able to get it ten times from an already known one. I remember you going on about it at great length. You described all the things that you felt until you were all the way inside the woman and how you began to lose mental interest in her then because, ‘I already know her as well as I ever will,’ I remember you saying that.”

I remembered it too. It had been the last time that we’d seen each other and I’d had a few vodkas before he came and he’d said that he was there because he thought that it was time that we got together again and he seemed to want me to talk about my life so I let it all out on him.

As I told him back then, close to a year ago it must be, it’s true that I’ve been chasing women all of my life because I don’t think that there can possibly be anything as successively exciting and satisfying as when one of them agrees to go somewhere private with you and the kisses get to be meaningful and you’re allowed to undo her bra and get full roving rights and she stops holding on to your hand to keep it from slipping all the way up under her dress and she eases her legs open to give you better access and she lifts up to let you slip her panties off and you get in position and hover but leave room so that she can slip her hand in between you to guide you in and then you’re probing into new territory all the way until your pelvic bones meet up. Through all of that time the ratio of mental to physical pleasure, for me, is around 90/10 but the second that I’m in all the way the ratio changes completely around and becomes 10/90 and although from then on until the end it’s very good indeed for my physical needs it’s already just about over as far as my brain is concerned. It seems that I’m cursed with being a thorough-going intellectual when it comes to the love game.

“Tell me what you’re asking me to do.” I said.

“Well, I want you to go and meet one of my patients. She’s a lovely woman, her face is angelic, and – ”

My heart sank at that point because that’s what everybody says just before they go on to tell you that a woman they want you to meet happens to be about two hundred pounds. Actually, I like lying down with a big women but only once a year or so – for the contrast – and then only for the fifteen minutes or so that I need to do some exploring until the time comes when I can’t hold back from driving into all of that wondrous flesh but when that first time is over I don’t want to even touch her again – which doesn’t endear me to them for some reason.

“ – and she’s really nice, all around. She’s always cheerful and everybody who meets her likes her at once. Well, the thing of it is that she only recently became my patient – she’s been suffering from bulimia and/or anorexia  since she was thirteen – and it looks very much as if she’ll never properly recover from the abuse that she’s subjected herself to if I don’t find a way to help her soon.

“Let me lay out all of the facts for you: she’s twenty eight – that’s three years younger than you are, right? – and she’s five feet eight in height and she weighs under a hundred pounds.”

“Jesus! How much under a hundred pounds?”

“Well, when I first began to treat her she was eighty six pounds and now she’s just over ninety.”

“Jesus! Eighty-six pounds? Her skeleton must weigh near to that much.”

“Yes, well – – – Anyway, let me tell you what happened. I go to her home to treat her – it’s very inconvenient for her family to bring her to my office – and after I’d examined her the first time – she’s in pretty good shape considering that she’s hardly been able to leave her bed for months – I told her the usual things that sound so obvious to us ‘normal’ people, like: what’s the point of maintaining what you think of as being your ideal weight if it means that you’re so weak that you can hardly get out of bed and so other people can’t get to see how attractive you are? And: surely you agree that there’s something seriously wrong with someone when her joints are wider that the rest of her limbs? And – well, more in that vein but it was like talking to myself. She just lies there and smirks because she’s positive sure that she knows better.

“Well, here’s the thing – yesterday, I was touching her stomach because she’d told me that she had a cramp there when she threw aside the sheet that I’d arranged just so to cover her genitals and she palmed her crotch like a guy would and then said, ‘Doctor. I don’t want to embarrass you but this is where it really hurts. I’m still a virgin and I’m sick of it. Every book that I read lately and just about every television show that I watch have sex scenes in them and it seems to be a given nowadays that the women want to get laid as much as the guys do and they even do the propositioning themselves in some cases. Well, getting exposed to so much of that has made my inner needs, the ones that I thought would stay subdued for the rest of my life, have developed to the point where they’re driving me to distraction. I can’t get to sleep at night because I do lots of twisting and squirming as I think about what I’m missing out on. Can you help me, please?’

“Well. I pompously and unhelpfully told her that I have no way of dealing with that kind of ailment and that she should ask her mother and her friends if they could come up with something but even as I was saying it I knew that my advice was useless to her in that if she could have asked anyone else she would have done so already. After all she is twenty-eight years old already. Imagine! Twenty-eight and never been so much as kissed no matter about getting in some nice loving for herself.

“She burst into tears when I was telling her that stupidity about asking her mother for help and so, to placate her and to ease my guilt, I promised that I’d think about how I could help her.

“Well. This is where you come in, bro. I thought of you almost at soon as I got a quiet minute to myself last night and since then I’ve re-examined my idea several times and I can’t see where it’s wrong. D’you see? You’re always wanting a new woman and she is exactly that, in spades, and it need only be the one time, which suits you down to the ground, true? So, it’s win-win, right?

“Oh. A word of caution. If she got to be pregnant then having the baby would probably – no – it would certainly kill her given her present state of health so we’ll have to be ultra careful about that even though she’s only had a half dozen periods in her entire life. Butl, of course, you can leave that part to me, I’ll see to that. ‘For the greater good,’ you know?

“So. If we – uh, I mean, if you – darken the room and – oh, but wait, I nearly forgot  – you’ll have to be sure to support your upper body weight with your elbows and the rest of you with your knees and that way there shouldn’t be a problem. Right? Well now, what do you think?”

“Jesus! ‘Support my body weight with my elbows and knees.’ was that it? What kind of pleasure could there be in it for me? Have you ever heard of ‘wallowing?’ ”

“Well, yes, but try to adapt man, and remember that there’s always the intellectual pleasure that you keep vaunting and I would have thought that the element of intrigue combined with the fact that you’ll be ‘going where no man has gone before’, and probably won’t in future, would sway you.

“Won’t that be enough for – – – ?” he began to ask but his question trailed off because he saw from my face that his last points had gotten me firmly hooked already.

Her mother came to the door and her friendly greeting eased the awkwardness immediately.

“Oh! There you are. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. You must be Cyril – Nancy’s new friend. Please come in – – – – Give me your coat – – – I’ll hang it right here, OK?”

She took me upstairs and into Nancy’s room and she told her daughter that she had a visitor and “here he is, dear” and then she went out and closed the door behind her.

The room’s curtains were drawn and there was just one bedside light switched on.

Nancy was sitting in a comfortable looking chair that was within easy reach of her bed and she was wearing a furry blue robe and slippers. Her face was indeed ‘angelic’ – like Audrey Hepburn’s was and any man who doesn’t like her for a prototype must be nuts.

Her robe covered her body and her arms and legs so it was like being in the presence of any ordinarily thin woman.

She offered a hand to me and when I took it in mine it felt as if it belonged to a bird. It was weightless and bony.

“Thank you for coming Cyril and I know that this must be a huge burden for you so I’ve worked out a plan to make it go smoothly. In the mirror my body looks to me to be about right as it is now but my mother and your brother and several other doctors, and around a thousand other people over the years, have told me that I’m too thin. Well, their opinion hadn’t really gotten through to me until your brother told me the other day that I can think whatever I want about what I believe my ideal weight is but there’s no getting around the fact that men aren’t going to hit on me as long as I’m under, say, a hundred and ten pounds. God, a hundred and ten pounds sounds to me like the weight of a Mack truck!

“Well. Because of my newly – uh – surging needs, and my state of mind right now, I want to be hit on very badly and so what I’d like to do is to put the light out and then take this robe off and go over and lie down on the bed and have you – uh – ravish – is that a good word for it? – ravish me. I’ve been told that it will hurt but I want you to just bull your way in the first time and then, I hope, take your time when we do it again so that I’ll be able to experience the pleasure and the satisfaction that everybody and their sisters tell me will come from doing – uh – the act.

“So, Cyril. Do you agree to trying it my way?”

I’d been looking at her face as she was talking and laying down the law and I was already aroused by knowing that this attractive woman was going to open up for me ‘to bull my way into her’ and consequently I didn’t want to take time to think about a more conventional approach so I told her that I thought that her plan was about right as far as I could see.

She said, “Well, then . . . ” and then she pointed to a tube of lubricating jelly that was on the sideboard and then, without another word, she reached over and switched the light off and I heard her robe drop back onto the chair and then the mattress creaked as she moved to the bed.

I took off my own clothes in about ten seconds and I applied some of her lubrication and as I was eagerly moving to join with her I remembered, only just in time, my brother’s warning about keeping my weight off her and so I slowed down and carefully got into position and, as advised, I supported my upper body weight on my elbows and my lower body weight with my  knees which were between her legs.

I paused to seek out her mouth for kissing purposes – I wanted to try to normalize the situation as much as was possible seeing that I didn’t dare do any of the standard love play moves and I was very unhappy about having to miss out on them – and I quickly found out that she clearly knew nothing about the fine, nor the coarse, art of swapping saliva and it soon became obvious that she wasn’t getting anything out of it and was impatient to get on with ‘the act’ and that she didn’t think that kissing of any kind had much bearing on the case at that point seeing that we were both naked already and that I was hovering over her and was intriguing her by indulging in a little haphazard frottage.

Her reluctance to continue with the kissing became even more obvious when she rejected my tongue after I’d done several exploratory exercises with it and so I had to give up and I said to myself ‘so be it, let’s get on with it so that I can get the hell out of this cold bed and out of this peculiar house’ so I whispered that she should reach a hand down to guide me in.

As soon as she took it in her hand her defiant attitude melted away and she ‘oooh’d’ about how ‘big it is’ and ‘how warm it is’ and how ‘it feels so right in my hand it’s as if it belongs there’ and she then leaned to one side to be able to reach further down to check out the rest of my package. She said ‘aaaah’ when she’d become conversant with what she found there she then started in on caressing me slowly and reverently.

All of that made me begin to have hope so to help her along I put one of my own hands down there and helped her learn how to use the head of it to directly frottage herself. She was shocked at the intensity of her own reaction to that at first and then she began to employ all of the other vowels, in turn – quietly as long as she could contain herself and then not so quietly – and she kept going at it until the novelty lessened. While that was going on I tried kissing her mouth again and that time she found that deep kissing was just what she wanted to go with the rest of it. She showed that she was a really quick learner because she did all of the things that I’d tried to do to her with my own tongue a minute or two before. Tellingly, while she was putting a great deal of effort into that she also tried to bring her non-existent breasts into play – I think that my nipples had more flesh under them than hers did – by lifting up to rub her chest against mine.

After a while Nature forced her hand, so to speak, and she stopped with the circling and she relocated me against her entrance but then she changed her mind and fought Mother Nature by diverting the head of it to one side to give herself time to make a brave attempt to swallow my entire tongue. I took it back from her after a few seconds because I didn’t want to wait any longer and she gave up then and relocated me until I was front and center again.

Before then I’d been the first guy to ‘know’ a total of five, or maybe six, virgins – who can really know for sure? – My three wives I was sure of – I wouldn’t have even thought of marrying any of them if they’d been used by another guy before me although, magnanimously of me as you’ll agree, I overlooked the fact that they came to the marriage bed non-intact but only because I’d been the guy who had un-intacted them all earlier in our relationships – and the others had been high school girls.

The thing of it was that they had all been young, seventeen to twenty-three years old, and thus their hymens were still pliable and having them torn open hadn’t been all that a big deal for any of them – which is not to say that they didn’t all make a huge deal out of the event – whereas Nancy’s was twenty-eight years old and consequently it was highly reluctant to be torn and pushed aside.

When I began to push seriously it gave way a tiny fraction but it wouldn’t lend itself to being torn asunder and by trying to stretch it I was causing her a lot of pain and her having really good vocal chords, which she was using, didn’t help at all.

I knew, we both knew, that the deed had to be done and done right then and so I used the technique that I’d used with the other virgins in my life – which is the same technique that we all use everyday to open a jar or a bottle or to pry something open, viz: keep increasing the pressure until the balky cap or lid, or whatever, gives way.

The fact that I was doing what I was doing and that the girl’s mother – and who could know whom else (that’s how Bill Gates wants that second ‘who’ written) was in hearing range? – was hearing her crying, and knew exactly what was causing it, made me get to be even harder and thus bigger and so that added to the problem. However, I knew that I was going to win eventually so I continued to follow my proven technique and I closed my ears to her screams and entreaties to “Get away from me you nasty, horrible, brute.” and even though her distress got to be more and more evident I knew that I was gaining ground ever so slowly so I kept increasing the pressure.

When I broke through her screams made the earlier ones as of naught and I half expected someone to come storming into the room to rescue her.

When it got to be clear that we weren’t going to be disturbed I began breathing again and then I progressed by slowly forcing the flesh inside her to give way to me which was, as always, an exquisite feeling and especially so in her case because not only was this virgin territory that I was exploring but also, because she had so little body fat, it was, necessarily, tight, tight, tight in there. Indeed, if her passageway had been one millimeter narrower I think that we would have had a real problem.

Mercifully, when I’d gained maybe two inches of ground, her crying changed into mere sobbing – I figured that not only must the most intense pain have come at her when the actual break-through occurred but also that she had to be feeling vast relief knowing that it was done with at last and that she had, however belatedly, joined the ranks of the overwhelming number (all?) of her peers – and so I was able to fully indulge myself and stay very aware of the seldom-come-by, all-encompassing-wonder of what I was at.

When, regrettably, we were bone to bruising bone I continued to press hard up against her for a few minutes, trying to gain the extra eighth of an inch that was simply not there for the taking, and while I was doing that I was already prepping myself to have to shortly acknowledge, as always, that the mentally stimulating side of the performance was at an end and there was only animal satisfaction left.

But then a truly strange thing happened.

As I continued to strain, I came to realize that I could feel a definite limiting barrier inside her and that confirmed to me that – notwithstanding the fact that our pelvis bones were already grinding together – I was as far into her as was possible for me to get and, seeing that I already knew that she was exactly right for me as far as circumference was concerned, that meant that she was the perfect fit for me in depth too. Perfect all around, in fact!

What are the odds of that?

Given the circumstances, when the revelation came to me it hardly bore thinking through but I did so because of the uniqueness of the situation and, by thinking about it, that brought the intellectual quotient back into the overall picture which was a definite first and was profoundly thrilling.

I figured that if I’d been the slightest bit bigger, or longer, or if she’d been the slightest bit narrower, or shallower, something fundamentally bad would have happened. Maybe she’d have been split in two, in the first case or, in the second case, perhaps one or more of her internal organs might have gotten – uh – compromised, which led to the conundrum of: could Nature possibly be capable of making such a crucial error in design that, instead of creating a new life, I could have destroyed an already firmly established one that was potentially capable of reproducing itself many times over? Not only would nothing have been gained but also there’d have been a huge loss and Nature is not known for being retrogressive when it comes to the basics. The possibilities of what might have happened went round and round in my brain, and on and on, and I knew that I needed time to think it all out but I held firm to the fact that I’d found a perfect fit.

The perfect fit! I’d already found out that the act of getting fully into it had been the most exciting and the most satisfying act of penetration for me ever and knowing now that it was the perfect fit depth-wise too made it equally obvious that there could never be a more exciting nor a more satisfying insertion ever. Stands to reason. I realized that I might possibly find another one equally exciting and satisfying in the future perhaps, maybe, but that was not only doubtful it was highly unlikely.

Nancy’s sobbing increased in volume and underwent a small change in tone at the same time and I guessed that it conveyed a touch of protest because she couldn’t understand about the detente and, also, the feeble efforts that she’d been making to get me to get off her ever since I’d breached her became more effective and they brought me back to the moment and so I decided to indulge the animal part of me.

When I started moving in and out I was delighted to find that, on the sensual level, over and above the usual pleasure that my nerve endings were getting, and duly passing on, I was keenly registering every change in direction because when I did so my foreskin was being given an exquisite workout, and that, at the same time on the intellectual plane too, the perfect match-up meant that the unique and multiple nuances were sending messages of exultation up to my brain. Never in my life had I experienced both at the same time.

What I was doing, I eventually realized, was this: I was fucking my doppelganger. I was fucking my life partner. I was fucking my identical twin. I was fucking myself.

Nancy obviously wasn’t getting anything but pain out of what was for me a life changing experience and her cries were continuous and persistent.

I figured that when I’d been moving into her initially, to gain ground, the fronds of her torn hymen had been pushed in one direction only and she’d learned to tolerate the pain that that had caused but when I’d started to move in and out to create the necessary friction that meant that with every change of direction she got a new set of pains as the ‘shards’ were pushed or pulled at and forced to realign themselves inwardly and then outwardly.

Clearly there was zero pleasure coming her way but I allowed myself to be selfish because, besides being physically incapable of even slowing down no matter about pulling out, perversely I told myself that because I was getting so much out of it she should be having an orgasm or two for herself solely from the fact that she was my partner in the act!

When I came it was, like everything else up to then had been, under intense pressure due to the tightness overall and consequently the pleasure factor was unworldly.

I wanted to think about what had happened and I wanted to do some wallowing while I was at it so I rolled over completely and made her roll with me without uncoupling and then I put my hands on her buttocks – they were meager but there was no flesh anywhere else on her whole body so they had to do – and I held her in place and I whispered little endearments past her sobs as I tried to figure it all out and decide what was best to do to be able to keep this wondrous woman in my life.

She’d mentioned at the beginning that she wanted me to stick around to do it all again when she’d recovered from being battering-ram’d but I was quite sure that she’d need a day or two before she could possibly be used again so I decided that I would first be extra nice to her to get her entirely on my side and start thinking of me as ‘her man’ and that would almost certainly, in the ways of women, make her defer to me in all things physical. That would be three quarters of the battle won right there, and, knowing that, I could then think about dealing with her mother and the rest of her family.

Having been given so much pleasure my member shrank until it only barely stayed inside her so its presence stopped hurting her and she then realized that she liked having full body contact with me and so her groans changed to whimpers and soon after that she lifted her head and started kissing me – perhaps in an attempt to ‘make the best of a bad thing’ – but it wasn’t long before that changed dramatically and she began to enjoy the sensation. From then on as soon as I so much a hinted at a new way to use our lips or our tongues she’d latch onto it and would try to expand on it.

It was nice but I knew that it was just her sensual reaction to what was new to her and what I wanted was to hear her start with the sweet nothings so that I’d know that mentally we were a bona fide couple already. She got started at it eventually but because most of the endearments that I’d used on her couldn’t be re-used on me and because she’d had zero practice with being with a grown man, she had to think up her own endearments and the first ones were as strange as the ones that French lovers use. They call each other ‘little cabbages.’ Well, I think so though I doubt so!

‘Sweetheart’ she knew so that got a workout along with ‘dearest one’ and even ‘my prince’ and ‘my soul mate’ so I steered her onto saner ground by telling her that she was now my woman and that our making love in future was going to be wonderful for both of us.

She got the point and came more down-to-earth by saying that she was sure that she’d never want any other man to come to her bed because none of them could possibly be as good as I am and that I was a regular stallion and then she recalled herself and she covered up her boldness by concentrating on kissing me.

I rolled us onto our sides and that made us disconnect and we stayed there kissing for a while and then she remembered that for the first time in her life she could reach for and touch a man’s equipment and check it out as fully as she wanted to and so she, at first shyly and tentatively, put one hand on me and then she boldly moved in the bed so as to get better access and I could feel her excitement grow as she got to know the topography down there more thoroughly. Because of that I responded by getting hard again and that made her pause with wonder at the phenomenon that she’d made happen.

I got bigger and bigger and then the full significance of that came to her and she let go of it and brought her head up to mine and whispered, “This means that you want to – uh – put it into me again, right? Is that what has to happen? Only, the thing is, I – uh – I don’t think that – ”

I kissed her mouth shut and then I told her that that it is indeed what usually happens but that I knew that she was hurting and so we weren’t going to do it again until she was fully recovered but that if she’d be kind enough to hold it for me that would help to ease it.

She rained kisses on me as she thanked me and she promised that it wouldn’t be long before – – – – – – and then she pulled away to be able to concentrate on using both of her hands to do the easing.

Of course, that treatment by her made me even harder but it was a pleasant experience so I courageously suffered through it and let her keep thinking that she was helping me.

While that was going on we heard the front door getting opened and then closed and she lifted her head and told me that that was her father coming home from work and that I wasn’t to worry because he’d approved of this ‘arrangement’ already and so he wouldn’t bother us.

However the incident had driven away my erection, post-haste, so I could think properly again and it came to me that I could use his arrival to cement in place my new resolve about keeping this woman in my life and avoid a lot of awkwardness too.

I told her that I was going to have to leave but that I wanted to come back as soon as she felt that it was all right for us to do it again and that I wanted her to do something for me right then.

“Anything. Anything at all. You name it and I’ll do it.”

“Well, let’s get dressed first and then I want you to walk unsupported to the front door with me, after calling out to your parents to come and say goodbye, and I want you to stand straight and strong and to smile from ear to ear all the time that they’re looking at us. OK? Can you do that?”

“For you anything, you darling man. And I’m sure that I’ll be able to do it because I feel marvelous right now. A little, no, a lot sore, but definitely marvelous. Who would have thought it possible? However, you’re not a miracle worker and so I know that I’ll need some help to get back here to this bed when you’ve gone out of sight.”

She called me the next morning, which was a Saturday, and she asked me to come to ‘see’ her and I asked her if she was alone and she said “No.” so I asked her to call me back when she was alone and then I told her that I missed her badly and was looking forward to being with her again and that she was to take care.

A half hour later she called me again and said that she was alone. She went on to say that she wanted to hold me and be held by me again and I told her, “Me too, but in the meantime push a finger into yourself and wiggle it and tell me if you’re still sore.”

She didn’t have to report back because I heard her shout out in pain a few seconds later and when she got back on the phone she said, ruefully, “I guess you heard that, right? Well, maybe not yet then but I really do want to just hold your hand and talk for a while. Can’t you come just to visit? That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“Of course it’s not too much to ask but it would be torture for me seeing that I know how wonderful it is being inside you and not being able to do so. You don’t want to torture me do you?”

“Of course not and I do see your point you darling man, so, all right, I’ll wait until I’m fully healed. You know, you promised that it’ll be good for me too when we do it again? Is that really true?”

“I guarantee it. In fact, if it’s only good and not spectacular for you next time then I’ll crawl all the way home on my hands and knees!”

“Oh, wow! I can hardly wait. Tell me what we’re going to do, please?”

“Well, we’ll start off by – – – – ”

But there, you don’t want to know what else I said to her. Do you?

We could, and did, go at it again a few days later, several times, and it got better for her every time and the quality stayed at the same high level for me – no higher because it is not possible to surpass the superlative – but the foreplay had to be held at the same meager level because of her gauntness. However, she knew that, as with all men, I wanted to be able to explore and play with her body but I couldn’t in its present state and so, for the first time in her life as an adult, she tried to see herself through other people’s eyes – in this case my eyes because I was the only ‘other people’ who counted for her then – instead of through her own and she told me that she’d eat whatever my brother prescribed for her if – a hugely important ‘if’ for her – if I promised to tell her many times a day that I not only loved her but that I would also love and cherish every extra pound that she put on.

We threw a big party for her when the scales tipped one hundred pounds and we had another one, a private one, when she had to buy and wear a bra.

Her parents thought that I was even more saintly than my brother and they insisted on ‘lending’ us a fifty percent deposit for our house when we got married.

Nancy categorically refused to go above one hundred and twenty five pounds because she couldn’t bear to see herself naked even at that weight – she genuinely thought that the amount of adipose that she was carrying around was obscene – and she hung drapes over the large mirror in her bathroom and would have none of them in any of the other rooms in the house. Also, she continued to wear long sleeved blouses and long pants but this time it was for her own benefit rather than for the rest of the world.

One day I asked my brother if he thought that her ‘cure’ was partly due to my regularly giving her an extra supply of proteins from the other end of her alimentary canal and he guffawed out loud and then he got a thoughtful look on his face and said that he would quit his job at the hospital if I’d promise to come and work for him in a clinic that he was going to open!

I remained careful about keeping up my end of the bargain as regards constantly reassuring Nancy that her weight was just right although when we were in bed together I didn’t have to say a word about that because my actions showed her clearly that I reveled in having access to her now normally sized body. It wasn’t hard for me to keep that up because being able to indulge in all of the foreplay that I wanted while knowing that ‘the perfect fit’ was there, waiting for me, made me a contented and an ever appreciative man.

It took a full year of living in our own house before that certain querulous look stopped coming into her eyes whenever I complimented her on her figure and it took another year after that before she, inadvertently, revealed just what had allowed her to drop her cynical attitude.

It turned out that she had suddenly realized – one Sunday morning when I was nuzzling on one of her breasts and was, at the same time, kneading one of her buttocks – that she’d married one of those guys that she’d heard about who are, inexplicably to her, turned on by fat women.

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