Chapter 1 - date night

“Honey, are you ready?” Collin called from downstairs. He tried to keep his voice even, although an air of impatience bled through.

It was Friday evening, and they always went out to dinner, yet lately they could never leave on time to make their reservation. Tonight was special too, it was the six year anniversary from the day they’d first met and Collin had made a reservation for a special table at one of the city’s finest steak houses.

“I’ll be down in a minute…” Jennifer called back.

She’s been up there for an hour already. Collin thought while sighing. He was tired of waiting around and already knew why she took so long.

Jennifer had always struggled with ‘body issues’, yet things had really gone downhill in the past year. She would often try on half a dozen outfits before settling on one to wear. In her mind it was as if nothing fit, yet from his perspective her clothes seemed looser than ever. As she appeared down the stairwell her face was blanketed with worry.

“Col, tell me the truth, just be honest with me, this dress..does it makes me look…fat?”

Jennifer was adorned in a black evening dress. She was anything but fat and the dress had extra material available. Her frame was petite like a songbird, and the dress’s thin straps exposed her dainty shoulders, jutting collar bones, and thin arms. Her legs, reminiscent of a newborn baby deer’s, extended from her dress, which was cut off halfway up her slender thighs. Her bust was small and tight, with a waist that curved into a subtle hourglass figure. Her stomach was flat and Collin could see prominent pelvic bones outlined through the dress’s fabric.

“Babe, you look beautiful, and no, that dress doesn’t make you look fat, because you aren’t.” Collin tried his best to keep a loving tone but in the back of his mind he was annoyed at both the redundancy and absurdity of the question. How can she even think that?! He wondered.

Jennifer didn’t seem reassured and reluctantly took his extended hand and headed for the door.
At the restaurant that night she barely ate a thing. She spent most of the evening avoiding eye contact with him and pushing a chicken caesar salad around her plate, mumbling once that the dressing was a bit greasy for her. Collin finished a 12oz New York steak with garlic mashed potatoes and asked for the dessert menu.

“Hey baby, it’s a special night, can we treat ourselves and split a piece of chocolate cake?”
The color seemed to further drain from Jennifer’s cheeks at the suggestion of dessert.

“Oh..I..umm..no, not tonight, I’m really trying to slim down a little,” replied Jennifer, patting an imaginary bump on her concaved midsection. “You know, what mother says…a moment on the lips, forever on the hips.”

Collin felt a flash of anger run through him. “It’s our anniversary, you must weigh less now than any other time we’ve been together, what are you now? 118lb? 116lb? And you’re 27 Jen, who cares what your mother says anymore, you know she’s not right in the head.” As Collin protested, he knew immediately he’d gone too far.

“Oh my God,” Jennifer looked horrified. “Is that how big I look? I’m 111lb now and still have at least another 5lb to lose.” She was starting to tear up. “My mother may have her problems, but some things she is right about.”

Collin was exasperated, he didn’t know what to say, he’d tried it all. Jennifer didn’t believe she was actually underweight, she didn’t buy his word when he told her she wasn’t fat, she didn’t see how relative to any other woman in the restaurant she was the thinnest, she didn’t see how her mother had poisoned her mind and distorted her image of her body since she was a child. So, he didn’t say anything except offering up a meek apology for suggesting the cake.

On the way home he tried to recover. He placed his hand on Jennifer’s while driving home.

“Baby, I want you to be happy and if you think you’d be happier a few more pounds lighter then I’m here to support you with that. Just know that no matter what, to me, your body is perfect, it’s beautiful just the way it is.” He was as sincere as he could be, yet in reality he was cringing inside about her plan to lose more weight.

Collin had preferred her figure the way it’d been when they’d first met. At that time she’d weighed around 130 lbs. By no means was she fat even then, but the extra weight had made her look healthier to him. As he reminisced, he remembered her breasts and buttocks were fuller, she’d had a small hump on her lower midsection that accentuated her hourglass figure, and her face didn’t have the same kind of gaunt anxiousness it reflected now. Even her long brunette hair had seemed to have a glossy sheen that seemed to have dulled. Lost in fantastic thoughts of his wife’s body returning to the state it’d been when he first laid eyes on her, his thoughts were broken as Jennifer replied.

“Thanks Col,” she responded with the kind of uncertain curtness he’d grown accustomed to. Incidents like this had become more and more common over the years and seemed he just could never quite figure out what to say to make her feel he was really there for her.

As they finished brushing their teeth that evening Collin wanted to make love. It’d been a couple weeks and he felt backed up and frustrated. He thought the anniversary would be a good night to try and began sweetly kissing her neck. As his hand fell across her waist he felt the iliac crest of her public bone with his fingers. Jennifer gently pulled away.

“Not tonight Col” she stated bluntly. “I just don’t feel like it.”

“Oh baby, c’mon it’s our anniversary, I just want to show you how much I love you.” Collin said, disappointment in his voice at the outright rejection of his affection. In actuality he’d been having more and more of a challenging time being excited about her himself and felt a little like he was off the hook.

“I know you love me, I just can’t though…” Jennifer had a distant sadness if her voice.

As Collin hopped into bed, he was defeated. I’ve got to get her help he thought. If I don’t then I don’t know where we’re headed, how much longer can I watch her wither away? His heart felt heavy as his mind transitioned into a restless sleep.