"Diet Man" by Ray Gregory

www.RayGregory.com

Diet Man

by Ray Gregory

“BULLSHIT ALERT! BULLSHIT ALERT!” the wild-eyed man screamed, sweating high-octane testosterone, bristling with electric overdrive. His shaved head glistened. Great veins throbbed in his temples. His straining, silk shirt, open to his navel, could barely contain his taut, ripped pecs and shoulders and arms.

He flailed his fists, bounding across the stage. Then he stopped and hunched, perfectly still, ready to pounce as he fixed the camera in his laser-sharp gaze.

“Nothing's more un-American than hunger,” he growled. “Being an American MEANS wanting for nothing, every appetite, every desire, every whim fulfilled to the max. It MEANS being fat and happy. Hunger means emptiness. It’s wanting, needing, craving, right? Hunger is hell. Well, WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!”

He calmed, getting intimate with the camera. “Talk about bullshit!" He shook his head. "Hunger’s the boogeyman, right? It scares you to death. The slightest hint of unfullness has to be dealt with immediately, and don’t forget to supersize the dessert. Well, I KNOW hunger, and it’s nothing to fear. NOTHING! It’s just a feeling, a perfectly natural feeling too, no worse a feeling than fullness. It’s just a different feeling, and once you get to know and appreciate it, you realize it’s a GOOD feeling, because when you feel hungry, you’re LOSING WEIGHT. You might not see it on the scale every single day, but it’s happening all the time on the cellular level. We only hate hunger because of its bad rep, all the bogus connotations that go along with it: emptiness, want, poverty, pain, starvation. But the truth is hunger’s our friend, our BEST friend too when it comes to weight loss. It tells us when we’re losing weight, which is whenever we feel hungry. Hunger IS weight loss. When we accept hunger as our friend, we can literally WILL our weight to be whatever we want. All we have to do is hang out with our new buddy, hunger. Could anything be simpler?” He raised his palms, shrugged, before continuing.

“Now wait just one minute, you say. Hunger, my friend? My buddy? Are you nuts, Ron? Are you some kinda frigging idiot? What kinda friend causes me pain? If hunger’s my friend, why does it hurt?”

His hands shot to his hips. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you why: because your body has psyched you out. You think you’ll starve to death if you don’t banish hunger immediately, before you even get to know it. Our bodies are like that, you know, real all-or-nothing drama queens. There isn’t a body in the world that’s a natural-born hero. It takes a mind and a will to be fit and strong and heroic.”

He shook his head, sighed heavily. “Have you ever hung out with hunger, ever really got to know it, got intimate with it? I’m not talking starving yourself either, so anorexics need not apply. All I’m talking here is everyday hunger, the kind you feel between meals or maybe at bedtime when you haven’t been munching all night after dinner. And you know who you are too, you late-night snackers, you ‘fourth meal’ addicts.” He pointed and scowled.

“Comfort food, you say. What are you, babies? Well, guess what? When you cut out all that after-dinner nibbling, that big, bad hunger monster you’ve psyched yourself into being so scared of turns out to be just a cuddly little pussy cat. You’ll love the way he stretches and yawns in your belly. Sharp claws? He’s just a pussy cat. When you go to bed, he’ll nod off too, without a peep. When you wake up the next morning, you’ll feel great for a change after giving your gut a rest. I mean, you can’t expect your liver to crank out those digestive juices 24-7 forever without wanting to smack some sense into you sooner or later.”

He raised a fist, shook it. “Try it. Try it TONIGHT. Go to bed without snacking after supper. Savor that hunger you feel before bedtime, that milquetoast pussy cat hunger. Enjoy the feeling that your gut has room to spare for a change. Take pride in knowing you’re doing the smart thing. Then imagine yourself trim and healthy, because that’s where we’re headed. Now YOU tell ME who’s been the idiot all these years.”

That was how Ron Ramstrong’s latest video started, with Ron, the Weight Loss Wizard himself, delivering the no-nonsense straight talk about sensible eating. Ron looked as good as ever too: trim, muscular, powerful. And his weight loss program, thanks to his charismatic cajoling and hard-as-nails tough love, really worked for his followers, who watched his videos religiously, drawing their energy and determination directly from his hypercharged screen presence.

Ron was everywhere these days swearing by his technique, from his TV infomercials to radio talk shows to news interviews. He had the personal, life-size, before-and-after shots to prove everything he said too. The before shots plainly showed that Ronald Goldberg — before he’d become Ron Ramstrong — had been a huge lardass. There were documented photos of Ronald “Fatso” Goldberg lounging by a pool, tipping a rowboat, waddling around a golf course. But all that had been before Ron had figured things out, before he’d got down-and-dirty personal with food and appetite and hunger. Now there were thousands of before-and-after shots of Ron’s followers too, and every one of them a glowing testimonial to Ron’s weight loss genius. Photos of Ron’s newly thin, satisfied customers flooded the mailroom of his corporate headquarters every day.

When Ron had still been fat and not yet successful, he’d considered his slender, graceful wife Deborah a glaring tribute to his charm and wits. Deborah had certainly been more than his body or his bank statement at the time had deserved. And she’d been a great mother to their daughters too. But Deborah was painfully staid and introverted in public.

Now Ron had always appreciated the value of a good woman behind the scenes. But Deborah just wasn’t up to properly complementing the flashy new Ron. He figured he wasn’t midlife-crisis delusional either. He was simply facing reality. With his will and hard work, he had rejuvenated himself. He was better now at forty-eight than ever. His body could pass for years younger, even as Deborah looked every bit her forty-five years.

Considering Ron’s new calling as the Weight Loss Wizard, as the premier role-model to his many followers, Deborah was just no longer a suitable partner for him — at least, not in public. She was even starting to get chunky around the waist, and she refused to exercise with anything near his superhuman intensity. He needed someone comparable to him by his side, someone to complement his image, not provide contrast. Ron Ramstrong, the Ron Ramstrong, needed a partner every bit as dedicated to his weight loss program, and every bit as exemplary a graduate of it, as he was himself.

The worse thing about Deborah though was her lack of screen presence. She’d sufficed when she’d been in her prime, especially all dolled up and decked out in diamonds and wearing something short, black, and slinky. At least she’d been able to make acceptable appearances on Ron’s arm at parties, even talking minimally while clearly bored out of her mind. Ron had been proud to be seen with her back when he’d still been fat. But she’d always been camera shy, and never bothered or cared to get over her distaste for appearing on TV.

Ron had tried to get her into his act, since family was such a great marketing angle. He’d offered her acting lessons, a personal coach, anything, but Deborah’s camera shyness seemed congenital. And a salesman she wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination. She couldn’t sell milkshakes on the equator or hot chocolate at the North Pole. She was strictly behind-the-scenes, stay-at-home material.

Ron though had always been a go-getter. Nothing satisfied him more than talking people into things. It was his passion, better even than sex. At one time or other he’d sold cars, vinyl siding, insurance, real estate, vacation-property shares, stocks and bonds, and he’d smashed sales records with every new challenge. Throughout high school and college he’d always had the quickest wit — and, alas, the biggest waistline. His intelligence and charm had gone a long way toward counterbalancing his weight, though he’d always been self-conscious about his looks. But when he’d started working, he’d got so caught up in the thrill of bending customers desires to his will that he’d been too busy selling and dreaming of selling to think about his body. Fast-talking Ron, the master phone salesman, had munched between every call, his heart pounding with the excitement of the hunt. He’d become a sales legend as well as a legendary porker.

Then one day Ron had lost his appetite. He’d had no idea why either. He’d figured it’d been some sort of low-grade flu, not even enough for him to take off from work to see a doctor. The only significant symptoms had been a rundown feeling and his loss of appetite. For about three weeks he’d had no desire to eat, no need to shovel food into his mouth all day. He’d simply lost all interest in eating, even though his rational mind had still realized he needed sustenance. He’d had to force food down just to have the energy to go to work. After three weeks he’d dropped thirty pounds without even trying.

It’d been then that Ron had realized the simple but profound truth, realized it literally to his core: Eating was irrational. It was only about feelings. Reason, even common sense, had nothing to do with it. He could think all he wanted about dieting, but if there were no feeling, no real passion to motivate him, all that thought was just so much wasted neural sparking or stray brain waves or whatever. Even though he’d lost his appetite, he’d still been able to feel the hunger. But the hunger had lost its insistence. It’d no longer been larger than life. He’d suddenly realized he could deal with it, and easily. He could even get passionate about dealing with it — the same kind of passion he’d had for sales. And the realization had been magical, liberating!

When Ron had seen his weight loss in the mirror, he’d liked what he’d seen. The new, slimmer Ron had both looked and felt better. He’d even wondered if his sickness had been psychosomatic, maybe his overloaded body trying to point out the obvious to his clueless mind. When his appetite had finally returned — the strange sickness had disappeared as suddenly as it’d started — Ron had deliberately started eating less than he had before. Much less. He’d cut out everything unnecessary, all desserts and snacks between meals. As he told it now, he’d made friends with hunger, because he’d discovered that, when it came to weight loss, hunger was his friend — maybe his only real friend. In just two more months Ron had dropped another fifty pounds of excess fat. It’d been then that he’d realized, wham-bang salesman that he was, that he’d sold himself short by relying solely on his personality and voice to make his way through life.

Ron had decided then that his body too would become a major asset. So he’d redirected his drive for overachievement. Weight lifting and aerobic training became his newest passions. He would press and pump and run and jump himself into great shape. And if he could sell himself on weight loss, why not the rest of the world?

His first book, which he’d pounded out in three weeks, had been all about his own diet-and-exercise miracle. It’d been full of glossy, inspiring before-and-after shots, plus Ron’s hip wisdom and wacky wit. As soon as he’d pitched and sold it to the publisher, he’d started his weight loss company, and voila! Ron’s new career, new name, new life had begun. And could his timing have been better? Just look at the statistics, America, at the numbers on the national bathroom scale. Ron Ramstrong, the Weight Loss Wizard, was the right man in the right place at the right time!

Ron had always been a charge-ahead, don’t-look-back kind of guy, without the time or the inclination to dwell in the distant, cloudy past. Why trudge backward through all that muck anyway? What good are memories full of sniggering and the incessant taunts: fatso, porker, lardass, blubber butt? But the nightmare was over now. Ron was wide awake and in great shape, and that was all he needed to remember. The best thing about the past to a future-grabbing guy like Ron was how insubstantial it was, how easy to overcome and forget.

With his newfound persona, Ron had been like a wide-eyed kid in a candy shop — but now a smart kid in full control of his appetites. He’d been lucky to latch onto Deborah, his great-looking wife, when he had, but now women in a whole different league threw themselves at him. Sure, he’d had a few flings just to prove he could, like taking his new body out for a spin, doing wheelies, laying some rubber. And he’d soon discovered it was the seasoned gold diggers who always moaned and screamed the loudest, as if he of all people had the Midas touch for female orgasms. But he hadn’t been fooled. Getting a woman to open her purse, to buy whatever he was selling, was still the bigger challenge, and the bigger thrill.

Then Gina Ringle mailed her photos in. Her “before” shot showed she’d been quite a pudge once. Her bra bulge and love handles and muffin top and saddlebags wouldn’t have turned the head of any modern, svelte-conscious male. But in her steamy after shot, Gina in a string bikini, tanned and basted in body oil, posed to perfection, grabbed Ron by the eyeballs and wouldn’t let go. We’re a perfect match, Ron, plus I love to act!!! That’s what Gina had written in hot-pink lipstick on the back of the photo. She’d added a spritz of heady perfume too, plus her phone number.

Scores of other women had tried the same ploy, of course. The rumor mills buzzed with stories of Ron Ramstrong’s search for a female counterpart to join him on TV and in his videos. But unlike all the other senders of scented and lipsticked photos, the newly slim Gina was a world-class knockout. A successful infomercial-class knockout, Ron instantly concluded. What a body! What a face! And if such a photogenic lovely was gaga over him on a personal level, it could only boost her on-screen sincerity to the heavens. Added gravy, Ron figured, letting a real no-no of a metaphor slip past the Weight Loss Wizard’s iron-willed defenses.

Ron didn’t even bother to run his decision past his staff. He snatched up the phone and called Gina Ringle himself. When she answered, her syrupy Southern drawl enthralled him even more — she was from Georgia, the Peach State, Gone with the Wind country! When she mentioned her dinner theater experience, Ron nearly gasped. She could act! And her languid, sultry tones would complement his New York Jewish accent and rapid-fire bark perfectly. With her mouthwatering curves next to his muscular physique, he and Gina would sound and look great together.

So Ron summoned her for an audition and a screen test ASAP. But it was all just a formality. Ron already knew Gina was the one.

When Gina flew to Los Angeles and strolled into Ron’s office the very next day, he was sold anew. She was the real thing, all right, real Old South charm and manners. She even blushed when Ron blurted he “couldn’t fucking believe” the difference in her before-and-after shots. When she said, “Aw shoot, Ron. All aah evva dayed wuz evrathang yuh sayed,” Ron beamed the way he had when he’d got lucky on prom night thirty years ago.

He was even more impressed when he tried to guess her age, and she admitted she was thirty-five. She didn’t look a day over twenty-five!

Gina had real stage presence, all right, as well as the looks. And oh, those looks! Even though she stood in his office now wearing a suit instead of that skimpy bikini from her after-shot photo, the effect was — well, even better! Her suit was tailored so hourglass snug that everything it covered was breathtakingly obvious— just as it would be to the awestruck viewers watching on their TVs. And Ron Ramstrong and his ingenious weight loss program would get all the credit for this splendid creature.

“Yea-as, Ron, yuh made me, aw raht,” she said, peering down at herself in awe.

Ron could already see himself hugging the sultry, fawning “Miss Gina” to his side as he spoofed her quaint accent. Now, after meeting Gina, he was grateful Deborah was satisfied with hiding in the off-stage shadows.

Gina relocated permanently to LA, to a condo Ron’s people found for her. Ron and his studio team wrote the scripts, and production began. Everything went swimmingly too. Gina was a hard worker, and she was every bit as nice off screen as on. She was always polite to the production crew, even the lowly grips. Everybody loved her. And she was a great ad libber too, just like Ron. She really clicked with him on screen, the soft, feminine counterpart to his raging bull of a salesman. Best of all, she was a natural at sales: she wriggled her way into the customers’ heads, sided up to their imaginations, cooed to them exactly what they simply must have to be happy and fulfilled, and she made them believe every word of it. How had Ron found her? everyone wanted to know. She was perfect!

Sales for the first Ron-and-Gina weight loss video were huge. As soon as the infomercial hit the cables and satellites, orders poured in, a torrent like never before. Women loved Gina’s chipper style and the way she held her own against Ron’s comic jabs, giving as well as she got. Men couldn’t get enough of her either — Gina in tights, stretching, exercising! Orders from men jumped 300 percent over the Ron-alone videos. Everyone raved about the Ron-and-Gina sensation, about their comic banter, their perfect balance and chemistry. TV and radio talk shows scrambled over each other to get at them. By the time they’d put out their second video — everything went like a dream again — Ron wasn’t just sold on Gina, he was smitten. Selling was his passion, all right, but with Gina, his perfect female complement, pitching by his side, selling took on a whole new erotic dimension. Ron, the consummate salesman, couldn’t imagine a better foundation for a romantic relationship than what he and Gina shared now. He had to wonder if this was the real thing, what love was really all about.

The infatuation was hardly one sided either. Gina had harbored a thing for Ron ever since she first saw him on TV, when the bounding, driven Weight Loss Wizard had first stared at her from the screen and personally sold her on losing weight and getting in shape. And get in shape she had, thanks to Ron’s firm, manly coaxing. She’d always been a butterball, but now Ron’s idea about learning to love her hunger had suddenly made the profoundest sense. Of course, by then her hunger had also included her exquisite longing for Ron. Who better to share the new Gina with than her hunky, dreamy creator? But, like any self-respecting Southern belle, she’d been patiently waiting for Ron to make the romantic first move — except, of course, for that perfume and hot-pink lipstick and the obsessively posed string-bikini photo she’d used to get Ron’s attention in the first place.

She knew Ron put in long hours in his office and his adjacent executive gym, where he wore a headset and bombarded his assistants with ideas as he grunted and pumped. She knew too he typically got home late, often around midnight, when Deborah was already asleep. So to hasten the inevitable, Gina invited Ron to come by her place for dinner one night.

She’d decided he took her demure, Southern-belle routine a bit too seriously. She wondered if he even realized she was a real woman, with real needs and desires. She wondered if the tension was driving him crazy too. Just the thought of cooking for Ron made her feel naughty — the way she hoped Ron would feel when it was time for dessert.

Gina’s familiar yell — “Come ‘n git it” — rang out from the dining room. But the heady aromas of tonight’s offerings had preceded her honey-glazed voice. Ron was already awake from his afternoon snooze, his appetite piqued. He’d been lying patiently on his stretched-out recliner, awaiting her formal summoning. How many times now, he wondered, had he relished those alluring words since that first night at Gina’s place?

Her come-hither tone — and oh, those sultry undertones! — aroused him as much as her culinary creations did. He felt the familiar rumblings in his gut and groin. They rose like clockwork, hot and pungent and powerful, a full head of steam in his bursting, potbellied boiler. And Gina, as she poured and ladled her creations for him, and dug into them herself! Gina, with her rolling bosoms and billowing flanks now, her churning hips more ample and sumptuous than ever! Ron licked his lips, imagining the errant trickle of gravy running down her cleavage, the melted butter dewing on her lips, her fat-slicked fingers nimbly roving over the table ¾ then roving over him!

It’d been funny how she’d apologized that first night at her condo. It’d been the only way she’d known how to cook, she’d said, the way her mother and grandmother had taught her. The family joke had been that those two matriarchs had believed “the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach” had been one of the Ten Commandments. So what the hell? Ron had thought. A one-time gastronomic lapse wouldn’t kill him. And he’d no more wanted to hurt Gina’s feelings than he’d wanted to miss soaking up her radiance from across that candlelit table. Gina’s full breasts, nestled in the ruffled garnish of her satin blouse, had looked like sumptuous culinary presentations themselves, so round and glowing and succulent. Forbidden food and sex? With Gina?! How could he have resisted?

As it’d turned out, Gina had learned only too well from the family’s matriarchs. And Ron had still been a man of great passions. Remember the time he’d got sick and lost his appetite, the thing that had led to his first monumental lifestyle change? Well now, he was ravenous again. He couldn’t get enough of his passions, for Gina or her cooking. Food and sex together? Food and Gina? Could there have been anything more filling? More fulfilling? The distinction between loving and eating was blurred now beyond recognition for them both. And Ron’s intimate friendship with hunger? Well, Ron and hunger had had a serious falling-out over Gina.

Sprawled on his recliner, stroking his ponderous belly, Ron felt a twinge of nostalgia about the diet business. It’d been two years since he and Gina had made their last video. Maybe all the excitement and attention had indeed been more important to him than he’d realized. Maybe he should have just changed his name back to Ronald Goldberg. It would have been a lot less embarrassing. He was even fatter now than he’d been before! He was back to doing all his business over the phone, back to selling with just his voice and personality.

The fucking paparazzi! The parasites! Ron shook his head. What kind of weaselly turds scrounged a living taking photos of other people, people who actually made their living doing something worthwhile? He and Gina had been out of sight, minding their own goddamned business, just cruising on the videos already in the can, and maybe with a little digital fakery now and then or the occasional body doubles. Then some bastard with a telephoto lens had snuck up into the hills behind the estate. Nude swimming-pool shots, for Christ’s sake! The weight loss video sales had plummeted after that one. Now it was nothing but Ron Ramstrong, laughing stock, hypocrite extraordinaire. The Ron Ramstrong brand name had as much fitness cachet now as the word fat ass.

It wasn’t like what had happened between him and Gina had even been conscious. Passions had a mind of their own. Things happened. The inevitable always prevailed. Ron remembered Gina’s before-and-after shots. Though she was even bigger now than before, she was still every bit Gina. Of course, she claimed now that she’d realized all along her slender period had just been a temporary aberration. It’d seemed like just a weird, frozen moment to her now, notable only — and wonderfully! — for having made it possible for her to meet Ron. But even with her dazzling slimness, she’d known she’d still been the same chubby girl on the inside. But now, she was fat and happy, the real Gina inside and out, and that made Ron happy too.

It hadn’t been pretty when Ron, at the height of his Weight Loss Wizard success, had told Deborah he’d outgrown her. But as much as he hadn’t wanted to hurt Deborah, he couldn’t have let her stand in the way of his happiness, or his success. She simply hadn’t been his ideal partner. She certainly hadn’t been able to play the role with anything near the savoir faire Gina brought to it.

Ron’s parents and his sisters had always loved Deborah. But his daughters had taken it hardest of all. None of his family could believe it when he’d dumped her for “that glitzy Southern shiksa.” They were even more disgusted now by the “Hindenshiksa” Gina had become, and still more disgusted by what she’d done to Ron. He’d come full circle and then some, from lard ass to a human blimp himself. It had cost him a fortune to pay Deborah off, half his fortune anyway. But considering Ron’s new appreciation for a low-profile existence, it was just as well Deborah had got the flashy house on the shore, while he and Gina had retired to the secluded get-away in the hills — though not secluded enough to thwart that jerk with his telephoto lens.

Gina was worth it though, every penny of it. Ron had never looked back. He’d always been more passionate about future prospects than past failures. And the things Gina brought to a relationship! The sex, the mouthwatering, tangible, full-bodied, whole-being sex! And her kitchen was as much an erogenous zone as the bedroom. Savoring her creative wares, all that she had to offer in every way, Ron could cut the sexual tension with a butter knife. All his former talk about buddying up to hunger, all that rationalized self-denial? What an ignorant simp he’d been! Why not enjoy life, enjoy it to the fullest? He was making up for lost time now, all right, making up for it big time with Gina.

Gina had been working on her cookbook project for some time now. She drove to her publisher in LA practically every day. There she tweaked the text with her editor and prepared dishes for photo sessions. She was secretive about the details too, even with Ron. He’d even felt neglected not hearing her constant tinkering in the kitchen at home. But he figured Gina’s cookbook gave her a creative outlet now that they were no longer making their videos and TV appearances.

“Surprise,” she would say in the introduction, “is the most important ingredient in any recipe, the best part of any delight, whether culinary or erotic ¾ or both at once! Nothing pleases the passionate cook more than that gasp of amazement, that moan of satisfaction. A pinch of surprise” ¾ the reader could easily imagine Gina’s trademark wink here ¾ “and oo-la-lah!”

The heady scents of Gina’s latest concoction drew Ron’s three-hundred-plus-pound mass to the dining room like magic. Once there, he saw a third place setting on the table. He noticed Gina’s nervousness too. Suddenly a strange man entered from the kitchen, a smiling, nodding young guy in a three-piece suit.

“Oh, uh, Ron, this is Dick — Dick Denton,” Gina said. “Dick’s my — editor. He arrived while you were dozing. We didn’t wanna disturb you. You do remember, right, about Dick coming?”

The guy was in his thirties like Gina. He looked naturally athletic, like the kind of guy who’d been fit all his life, weight never an issue. He looked like he’d be more at home in a Speedo than a suit, with a surfboard tucked under his arm. Dick, huh! And “remember Dick coming?” Ron knew damn well she’d never mentioned any dinner guest.

Like a flash, Dick stepped forward. He shook Ron’s hand and pronounced some stilted nonsense about being honored, his accent every bit as Southern as Gina’s.

“Dick’s been a great help with my cookbook, Ron. I owe him so much. He’s got great plans,” she said with what seemed like well-practiced breeziness, “and not just for the cookbook, but maybe, uh — something for me on TV too. My own show!”

Ron’s uncanny way of sizing people up, of reading prospective customer’s inner motives before they even knew about them themselves, had kicked into overdrive. He didn’t like the creepy, cherishing way the guy looked at Gina. And look at the way she glowed when she said his lewd name. Dick! Did she have any idea how obvious she was?

“Food for Love, Southern Style. That’s what we’ve decided to call my cookbook,” Gina said. “Dick’s from Atlanta originally — Los Angeles now, but he worked awhile in New York, your hometown, Ron.” She smiled big — too big, Ron thought.

The great cauldron of Ron’s belly had churned in anticipation all afternoon, the juices simmering and percolating — but for dinner, not this! He felt the dark, hot bile creeping up his insides, boiling his heart, strangling it. Superheated steam shot up his pipes now, pressurizing his head.

“TV? You’re gonna be on TV? You? Now?”

“I thought we could talk about this, Ron.” Her lip trembled. “Dick’s arranged everything. He believes in me.”

Ron grabbed Gina’s wrist and jerked her to himself, pressing her great thighs and belly against his own. “What are you doing with this guy? I made you,” he growled, staring into her eyes. “I….”

“No, Ron, no!” Gina cried out. She shook her head, struggled.

When Dick lurched to her rescue, Ron wheeled to ward him off, then stumbled backward trying to bring his huge mass around. He and Gina crashed to the table. Glasses tumbled, plates clattered, silverware clanged to the floor as they sprawled in the heaping, orgiastic mess of Gina’s steaming delights. The jostled platters and overturned bowls rattled around them when they tried to right themselves. Fortunately, the dining room table was an oaken monstrosity, a family heirloom with massive pillared legs, so it didn’t collapse under their combined weight. Ron clumsily lifted himself to his elbows, but when he rolled toward Gina, she squirmed away.

“This isn’t working, Ron,” she shouted. “You’re just too — big! How can I be seen with you anymore?”

Gina was thoroughly glazed with grease and gravy and melted butter. It matted her hair, ran down her thighs. Everywhere in-between she was smeared with gaudy orange sweet potato and mashed butter beans and ragged splatters of kale. She looked like she’d been in a food fight with Jackson Pollock and the drunken abstract expressionist had had no mercy. Dick put his arm around her now, apparently without thought to his newly pressed suit. “I’m taking you away,” he said, rushing her from the room, shielding her from the withering blasts of Ron’s raging invective.

At the door, Dick glanced back at Ron, still beached on his back on the slippery, dripping tabletop. Ron felt around gingerly with his hands now, fearing he might slide off and crash to the floor if he moved too fast to right himself. Dick shot him a final scowl, as well as the finger, before slamming the door.

Smothered in Gina’s savory delicacies, rolling in them, Ron felt himself deflating, shriveling, the hot juices in his belly stagnating, draining his soul. He’d lost his appetite — again.

Dick couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed — and couldn’t believe his luck. He smiled as he drove off with Gina.

What a concept! A cookbook by the woman who’d turned Ron Ramstrong’s full attention back to eating! The polling showed American women really identified with Gina — sweet, cheerful Gina. She was already a proven commodity. While those shots of her and Ron lounging naked by their pool had made a laughingstock of Ron, the lapsed Weight Loss Wizard, they’d only made Gina more sympathetic. The mystique mill was in overdrive. American women, at least the majority, the ones with their own weight issues, were more intrigued than ever with Gina.

Dick remembered that production guy on the phone this morning, the one who’d gone on and on about how the viewing public liked to see a porky cooking diva with a stud by her side, not another porker, certainly not one Ron Ramstrong’s proportions.

“Nobody wants to imagine two whales humping,” the guy had sniggered, alluding to the infamous pool shots of Ron and Gina. “Her sidekick’s gotta be a real dreamboat.” He repeated the word sidekick and laughed out loud. “A stud’s the proof of how good she is — in every way — the proof she can get anything she wants with that cooking,” and he’d sniggered again. “The cooking diva can be huge — I mean, licking all those spoons and bowls just comes with the territory, right? The typical fat house frau doesn’t want some skinny Minnie telling her how to cook. But the guy standing next to the diva, giving her and her pot roast those smitten-puppy dog looks…? He’s gotta be a real dream hunk. Don’t worry, we’ve got some great candidates lined up for auditions. We’re talking cooking and chemistry.”

Dick had never sniggered along once with the guy. “Fucking — weightist!” he’d sputtered after the guy had hung up. Idiots like him with their bony girlfriends! Dick had thought. They didn’t know what they were missing, what a real woman was like. And why, because the fashion fags decreed those anorexic runway sticks were the feminine ideal?

Dick gripped the stirring wheel tighter. Then he got an idea, his best idea yet: Gina’s sidekick! He’d had some acting experience in college. He’d been pretty good at it too. Gina was an authentic sensation. So why not the real thing for her?

He pulled to the side of the road, stopped the car. Gina was still sobbing. He slid his arm around her and kissed her.

“I love you, Gina. I have since the first time I saw you — everything about you.”

Gina hugged him back, her eyes tearing even more. “Oh, Dick! Really?”