Rosie patiently dusted the bookshelves; removing each book and wiping it down with an electrostatic rag and then replacing it precisely where it had been. She removed each knick-knack one at a time from the mantle and wiped it free of dust. Then she ran the feather duster over the smooth surface of the oak mantle before spraying it with furniture wax and buffing it to a high gloss.
“Filthy!” she hissed in disgust.
She wiped down the television and stereo system with the rag, spraying window cleaner on the screen and wiping it until her reflection shone through. She then threw the rag into the trashcan and grabbed another, repeating her frantic wiping on every piece of furniture, every knick-knack, and every trinket in the room. Everywhere she looked there was grime and scum, tops of the baseboards, beneath the stove and refrigerator, underneath the couch and between its cushions. She ran the vacuum slowly over the carpet until she was sure all the dust and dander was gone. Then she poured water and cleaning fluid into the steam cleaner and retraced her path over the carpet until it looked as if it had just come from the showroom floor. She poured three capfuls of ammonia into a bucket of water and lowered her mop down into it. Then she began furiously mopping the floors, walls, and ceiling. When she was done the house shined like a show model.
Rosie appraised her work with admiration. Satisfied over her accomplishment she went upstairs and stripped off all of her clothing, dumping them into the washing machine along with a capful of laundry detergent. She looked her body over, sniffed her hands and armpits and wrinkled up her nose.
“Filthy!” she declared with undisguised revulsion.
She sprinted to the shower and began furiously scrubbing at her flesh, using various soaps and bath gels before grabbing the bottle of bleach and dumping it over her head, wincing in anticipation of the burn. Various cuts and abrasions sang out in agony as the bleach seared her flesh and she scrubbed herself raw. When she finally stepped from the shower, she smelled as fresh as new linen.
She dressed in fresh clothes and went out onto the porch to watch as the garbage man struggled to heft her two trashcans into the trash truck. She winced when he dropped one of the cans and piece after piece of her drunken adulterous husband tumbled out onto the sidewalk. Blood flooded from the upturned receptacle and stained the sidewalk crimson as first his head, eyes still wide in surprise, mouth open as if still trying to lie his way out of it, then his legs, arms and finally his bloated torso splattered onto the street behind the garbage truck. Blood rolled up onto the driveway in a wave as blood, organs, and intestines came boiling out of the tremendous gash bisecting the corpse’s stomach and chest. Last, the gore-streaked weed whacker, the pruning shears, and the meat cleaver slid out of the garbage can on a slick trail of blood and viscera.
The two garbage men were shocked but managed to avoid throwing up and further soiling the blood-soaked street. They cautiously approached the second trashcan. The braver of the two stretched out his foot and kicked the can over, leaping back as the woman came sliding out leaving her skin and much of her flesh crumpled up at the bottom of the can. They both lost all pretense of bravery when the woman whose breasts, ass, and vagina had been removed, carved out so that the white of ribs and pelvic bone gleamed through where her sexual organs had been, turned eyes wide with terror towards them and began to scream. They hopped back into their truck and peeled out of the cul de sac, leaving the bloody mess behind.
“Filthy!” Rosie shrieked, her voice trembling with the force of judgement, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She turned and went back into the house to collect her cleaning supplies.
Tina looked in the mirror and felt her stomach roil with revulsion. She looked at her reflection and saw billowy rolls of adipose tissue dripping from each bloated appendage. She saw her own hideously distended torso enclustered with grotesque lumps of bulging fat and felt sickened. She didn’t know how Hank could make love to this horrible corpulent cow; why anyone would want to. Her pudgy cheeks were so swollen that she could barely see her own squinty, piggish eyes. The image she saw staring back at her looked as if she’d been stung by a dozen bees, or like she had eaten bad seafood and was having an allergic reaction. Tina wanted to cry. She was getting fatter everyday.
Yesterday, she spent two-and-a-half hours on the treadmill. She had it in its highest gear and was turning red from both the exertion and the certainty that the people on the stationary bikes in back of her were laughing at the ripples she knew must be going through her massive ass. After the treadmill she’d gone to the weight-room for an hour, then to the sauna for forty-five minutes, and then ten-minutes in the bathroom regurgitating breakfast into the toilet bowl. Still, the image she saw in the mirror was no thinner.
Sometimes she thought about taking one of the knives from her kitchen and getting rid of the fat one cut at a time. The only thing stopping her was the certainty that she would get too carried away and wind up taking too much off. It was better to let the professionals do it. She was already scheduled for her third lyposuction surgery. The fat just kept coming right back. The doctors said that this would be the last surgery. After that there would be nothing more they could do for her. If it didn’t work this time... well, she wouldn’t think about that right now.
Perhaps, the mirror was lying. She knew it could do that sometimes. Perhaps she was losing weight and didn’t know it. She stared at the hideous lumps of cottage cheese flesh that hung from her engorged thighs and tried to see the slim beautiful person within. All she could think about, however, was how many layers of fat lay between her musculoskeletal system and her skin. She estimated that there must be a foot or so of superfluous tissue between where she began and where she ended. She wondered what it would feel like to be hugged without so much excess flesh between Hanks body and hers; what it would feel like to make love without what felt like a whole other person in bed between them. It was time to step on the scale.
Tina flexed her glutes, trying to keep them from jiggling as she crossed her bedroom floor and walked into her bathroom. The slight movement of her thighs as she walked, the even smaller jiggle that went through her buttocks, even the bounce of her breasts, appalled her. If the scale didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear she would take that knife to herself. She crept across the cold vinyl floor and tapped the edge of the electronic scale with her big toe. She saw the screen light up and a row of zeroes line the liquid crystal display. Then she stepped both feet onto it and waited as it contemplated her body mass, preparing to give its verdict.
One hundred pounds. She gasped in astonishment and repeated the actions again. Stepping off the scale, tapping the clear button with her toe, stepping back onto the scale. One hundred pounds. She began to cry. Tears rolled down her smooth aquiline cheeks, down over the bones jutting from her chest, and between her withered breasts, over her protruding ribcage and concave stomach. They trailed over her sharp, painful looking pelvic bones and down her bony legs. She began to wail out loud.