Ladies Circle part 6

After her session with Nicky and Joe, Maria made her excuses and left as soon as she reasonably could without seeming rude. She had been surprised at how Joe had treated Nicky and immediately felt guilty, despite the fact that Nicky had seemed fairly ambivalent about what had happened. She parked in her driveway and quickly went indoors, realizing she probably shouldn’t have driven bearing in mind the wine she had just drunk.

“Honey I’m home!” she called out. There was silence. “Oh – hang on a minute…I live alone don’t I…” She did the routine most nights.

She spoke to the mirror just inside the hallway which reflected her rueful grin. What had possessed her to hook up with Joe she never knew, but presumably her usual problem…the problem that was staring her now in the mirror.

The full length mirror taunted her – but that was the idea. She had put it there on purpose as soon as she had moved into the small house, hoping it would catch her eye every time she left the house and persuade her to lose weight. It hadn’t worked…

Maria knew she had a self-image problem and knew it would be easy enough to do something about it, but, as she reached for the already-opened bottle of red from the previous evening and poured herself a large glass, she couldn’t think why she didn’t. She did know, of course, that she had got lazy.

Not in the physical sense, she hastened to correct herself. She went running on a regular basis and used the exercise bike up in the spare room. No she was not lazy that way – she was lazy in her attempts to “get a man” as her mother often so bluntly put it. She glanced at the calendar in the kitchen. Tuesday. At least it wasn’t her mother’s day for coming round. That meant she wouldn’t get the weekly lecture…

She refilled her glass, (where had that first glass gone?) and wandered through into the lounge. She slumped in front of the television, flicked it on just in time to see the end of the news and gazed at the local news, watching it but not taking it in. She might as well stare at the wallpaper. Again she drained the glass. She looked at her watch. Two glasses in 10 minutes. Dear oh dear…

She shook herself, as she often did when she was trying to bring herself round and meandered out into the kitchen again. She spent the next half an hour cooking herself spaghetti Bolognese – her speciality – and ate it back in the lounge in front of television.

As usual, she felt a little better for some food inside her but the evening still stretched ahead of her. She realized she was still buzzing slightly from the earlier session with Nicky and Joe, and also realized with concern that she hadn’t showered since then. An early night would be the answer she decided.

Having finished off the red wine she tottered upstairs and turned on the shower. Back in her bedroom she stripped off, throwing her clothes in to the corner of the room. She could sort those out later. She caught sight of herself in the dressing room mirror and heaved a sigh. Was she really destined to spend the rest of her life as a target for “chubby chasers” as Joe had so picturesquely put it? She found herself using the phrase herself now. Chubby sounded better than fat. She grinned at herself. To be fair she was chubby rather than fat – or cuddly as her brother put it. She guessed he was trying to be kind.

Her face was quite sweet, she thought, and she had smooth round shoulders which sloped down to, she had to say, rather magnificent breasts. They lolled sleepily on her chest but after that, in more ways than one, it all went a bit pear shaped…

She had good child bearing hips, or so her mother told her, but as far as she was concerned she had saddle bags. Her legs were also somewhat chunky although her feet were quite reasonable. It was no consolation, however.

Before she got suicidal she stepped into the shower, enjoying the feeling of the hot jets of water washing Joe away. She felt a little bit guilty as she had been quite complicit in her affair with him but she still felt a little grubby when she came home and the shower seemed to help. When she had finished she stepped out and quickly rubbed herself down with a large white towel. Her body glowed and she used copious amounts of talcum powder to reduce the redness. It was bad enough being a blob without being a pink blob…

Back in her bedroom she glanced at the clock. It was too early to go to sleep but she had no intention of sleeping…

She pulled the quilt off the bed, and lay back down on the cool sheet. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. This helped her to relax her and sweep away negative thoughts. (That was what the magazines said anyway.) Oddly enough she did feel more relaxed and decided that, quite frankly, she didn’t give a shit about Joe or any other man who might lust after her folds of flesh. She took a deep breath and then lay her fingers on the upper slopes of her breasts.

Their weight caused them to hang either side of her chest and she gently sunk her fingers into the soft flesh and brought them up, squeezing them together.