Wedding Weight

Chapter 6 - The Swing of Things

When Robyn awoke the next morning, she was hungry and disoriented. The disorientation passed quickly as she recalled the bizarre events of the previous day — her abduction, her weigh-in, her imprisonment — leaving her mind with nothing to focus on but a burning emptiness inside her. Her body, she was convinced, was already digesting itself in a desperate bid to survive. True, it had been no more than sixteen hours since its last meal, but to Robyn's body that was an extremely long time and she believed it was starting to panic.

"Hey!" she called out. And when no one responded she shouted, "Hey!" again and followed it up a few seconds later with, "I know you can hear me!" Given the Orwellian nature of this place, how could they not be listening? But if they were, they weren't responding.

"Well, fuck a duck," Robyn said despondently.

But then her bracelet chimed and the LED's spelled out the words, LET'S GET MOVING!

Robyn knew what the bracelet wanted. She looked at the treadmill, bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, which seemed to glow softly, beckoning her. These two devices, she now believed, were working together, plotting against her. 

And then she remembered what Dave had said. The number of calories she burned would determine how much she was fed.

Robyn knew what she was supposed to do, but she felt a spark of defiance. She would refuse to play their game, starving if necessary. Yes! A Gandhian display of fortitude and moral courage! Take that, ridiculously attractive powers that be!

But she quickly changed her mind, realizing that there are few forms of protest less effective than a hunger strike at fat camp. 

So Robyn stepped onto the running belt and, hating herself for her weakness, started to walk. Slowly at first, then faster, until she was jogging at 3.5 miles per hour and the TV screen flickered to life. Using the keypad on the console, she chose a movie at random, which was about a stupid blonde surfer girl who refused to quit surfing even after a shark tore her arm off. This was supposed to be inspirational, a triumph of the human spirit, but to Robyn it was an act of lunacy. When your hobby costs you a limb, she reasoned, it's time to move on to a new hobby. 

Then again, losing an arm is a pretty efficient way to drop ten pounds. So maybe that was the message.

As the credits started rolling, her bracelet chimed. BREAKFAST!

She turned to the door as she heard the scrape and click of a deadbolt releasing. Dave came in, carrying a tray topped with a silver dome, balancing it on one upturned palm. When he saw Robyn on her treadmill, miserable and sweating through her lycra, he nodded with satisfaction.

"I see you've gotten into the swing of things," he observed drily.

"Yes, if by 'swing of things' you mean 'submitting to torture.'"

"That is what I mean," Dave said with an almost imperceptible grin. Then he lifted the dome off the tray. He didn't say voila! which Robyn found disconcerting, since she had never in her life heard of anybody lifting a dome off of a tray without saying voila! 

But she soon understood why, when she saw what the dome had been concealing: A twelve-ounce glass containing some sort of gray, viscous liquid. Robyn was repulsed.

"Is that my breakfast?" she asked, her stomach preemptively churning at the thought of having to digest it. Dave nodded and handed it to her. "Let me guess: It contains everything I need for maximum health and effective weight loss."

"It does."

She sniffed it and winced. "Does it taste better than it smells?"

"It does not."

Robyn took a few deep breaths, psyching herself up, then tilted her head back and powered down the murky, gelatinous drink. When she finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and shuddered.

"You know," Robyn said, when she stopped gagging, "people will be looking for me."

"I doubt that."

This pissed her off. "What's that supposed to mean? I've got friends, I've got family, I've got a fucking fiancé! You don't think he'll come looking for me?"

Dave shook his head, his eyes crinkling with amusement at her naiveté.

"Why the hell not?" Robyn demanded.

"Because," Dave said with infuriating equanimity. "You'll tell him not to."

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Brian was watching a porn clip on his laptop. Two busty lesbians, a blonde and a brunette, were wrestling on a suede sectional sofa in someone's living room. One of them, he gathered, had committed the cardinal sin of borrowing the other's shoes without permission, and tearing off each others' tops was apparently their preferred method of conflict resolution.

When the email from Robyn came in, he hit the space bar on his keyboard, pausing the action. Out of respect for the woman he loved, he zipped up his pants.

He clicked on the embedded video file and Robyn's face appeared on the screen. "Hello, Brian," she said stiffly. "It is me. Your fiancée." Robyn went on to explain that, because she lacked self control, she had decided to check herself into a wonderful weight loss facility, emphasizing that she had done this of her own volition, without being coerced in any way.

Brian furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side, perplexed. Was it his imagination? Or were Robyn's eyes blinking unnaturally, at odd intervals?

Robyn concluded by saying that it would all be worth it, because she would be thin and beautiful for their wedding. She told him that she loved him, reiterated that she had not been coerced into making this video, and said goodbye.

Brian stroked his chin thoughtfully, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. Robyn had always been awkward on video, but she sounded awfully stilted, even for her. And again, the way her eyes were blinking, like she was a P.O.W. sending a secret message in Morse code. What could it mean?

Nothing, Brian concluded. He was being ridiculous.

Later, there would come a time when he would kick himself for failing to understand what Robyn had been trying to tell him. Even later, there would come a time when he'd be glad he didn't. And in Brian's defense, in recent months Robyn had become obsessive about losing weight. Plus, the truth was so unfathomably strange that he could hardly be faulted for his failure of divination.

There was something else, too. He had told Robyn, on more than one occasion, that it wasn't important to him that she lose weight. He was completely sincere. But just because it wasn't important didn't mean he disliked the idea. And he felt a twitch in his loins at the thought of a streamlined, curvaceous Robyn and the things he would do to her on their honeymoon.

But that was in the future. Right now, he was focused on the lesbians and the things they would do to each other on their sofa. He unzipped his pants and hit the space bar. Brian leaned forward as the combatants resumed their topless grappling. It became clear that, despite her smaller size, the brunette was going to win. 

She just wanted it more.

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