‘Come on love, haven’t you finished yet? I’m trying to watch the footy!’

‘Won’t be long love, I want to try and make it to twenty minutes tonight.’ Jeana’s exercise bike had only just beeped past the five minute mark and already she had to gasp out her reply. This was week eight of her exercise program and today was the first day Jeana had used her upright bike. For the last eight weeks she had been using a floor bike. This machine allowed the participant to lie with their back on the floor and pedal. It was the perfect starting point for anyone whose thighs were too big for the conventional bike.

‘Can’t you just give it a break tonight? I can’t hear what’s going on with all that squeaking!’ Jim didn’t look away from the TV; he barely took his eyes away when he took a swig of his beer or forced a handful of Pringles into his mouth.

‘Would it kill you to be a bit more encouraging?’ Jeana gasped She was finding being sat upright and peddling much harder than lying on the floor.

‘Is going out to work and paying all the bills not encouraging anymore?’

Oh great, the usual war cry, Jeana thought, though she didn’t say it as she didn’t want to get into the same tired argument, at least not when she was barely able to breathe.

Jeana’s silence prompted Jim to add ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering love, you’re fifty in a couple of months, it’s a bit late to start getting fit now.’
Jim spat Pringles as he spoke. He appeared to have lost the ability to chew; instead he just relied on a constant supply shoving from his hand to get the crisps down to his stomach.

Jeana tried to ignore him and looked at the bike’s computer display. It told her she had five minutes left to go and had, so far, burned 200 calories. Jeana could feel her heart banging against her chest, but even though her thighs were starting to chafe against the sweat covered metal of the bike she peddled on, determined to make it to the twenty minute mark.

‘It all just seems like a waste of time to me’. Jim said, resting his fresh can of beer on his ripening belly. ‘I love you no matter what you look like, so you’re just getting sweat all over the carpet for nothing’.

You might love me, thought Jeana, but you haven’t touched me in years. Or at least you have but it’s been after a drunken night out with the lads and a couple of Viagra.
Even then Jeana couldn’t be sure they’d even had sex, given Jim’s knob was only average but sadly his belly wasn’t.

At the twenty minute beep, Jeana almost fell from the bike and dumped her newly attainted size sixteen frame onto the settee.

‘Love you’re getting sweat everywhere!’ Jim said, covering the carpet with the contents of his mouth..

Jeana took a gulp from a glass of water , took a deep breath, then another, another gulp and then said:

‘The settee’s leather and it’ll wipe off, much easier than those crisps you’ve just spat on the floor.’

‘I haven’t spat anything anywhere.’ Jim snapped, this time adding beer to the carpet.

In the hall the phone started ringing, halting Jeana’s retort and instead allowed Jim to jibe:

‘Oh, if it’s a day ending in ‘y’ that’ll be your sister then.’

Oh fuck off! Jeana wanted to yell, though she didn’t. Her pleasant but strict upbringing stopped her voicing such foul language.. For her, bad language was something only meant for the TV and only then after 9p.m.

Jim used to swear when they had first met and worse he had sworn in front of Jeana’s mother. This was one reason, one of many reasons, that her mother had always hated him. Now, though, after many years of nagging ‘not in front of the kids’, Jim now kept his swearwords for the pub.

‘I’ve just managed twenty minutes Bev!’ It was Jeana’s sister. It was always Jeana’s sister and, these days, her only friend. ,Well, her and the Prozac.

‘That’s great Jean! You’ll be in your size 12 party frock before you know it. Your 50th’s going to be fab, shame you have to bring mardy arse along.’

‘Bev don’t say that, he’s not that bad.’ Jeana knew he was a mardy arse and that was on his good days but she felt some antiquated duty to defend him.

Jeana moved the phone to the stairs. This was as far as it reached. Jim had not wanted a cordless phone saying that he ‘didn’t see the point as nothing in our relationship is a secret.’ What he should have said, of course, was ‘we have a perfectly good phone and I don’t see the point in spending my money just because you want to talk about me to your sister’.

As Jeana took her seat on the stairs, she could hear Jim adjusting the TV volume. Bev must have heard it too, prompting:

‘Not that bad! He’s just turned the TV down, hasn’t he? That mans a swine to you! I don’t know why you don’t just leave him?’

Jeana wanted to say ‘I don’t know why I don’t leave him either, he’s a fat, abusive lush, who doesn’t nothing but feed his face and pick his arse.’ But she thought better of it, given the fat abusive lush had just turned the TV down to find out what she was saying.

‘We’ve been together a long time Bev, you have to work at these things, you can’t just walk out on a relationship, it’s not that easy.’

‘You mean you won’t leave him with the kids, just in case he misplaces them. Well, that argument might have worked five years ago, but you don’t’ see them kids anymore except on holidays, when they come back from Uni, needing their ironing done and some money.’ Jeana wondered why Bev bothered ringing her. As Jim had said, she did ring every night and it was mostly just to tell her how crap her life was.

‘Did you want anything Bev? I’ve just got off the bike and I could do with a shower.’

Bev went on to babble for another twenty minutes more before finally getting off the phone and letting her sister go.

Jeana let the shower wash over her, the warmth of the water calming her senses. Emptying her new Avon cleansing scrub into her hands Jeana began to give herself a gentle wash down.

She had been dieting for nearly six months and exercising for the last two. Jeana hadn’t wanted to start an exercise program until she had started to lose some weight, which wasn’t easy when her husband only wanted to eat chips.

‘I’m not eating any of that rabbit food crap! I work long hours and need more that a lettuce leaf to keep me going!’ Jeana would have never even considered offering Jim a salad for his tea, but he had felt the need to point out his feelings on the subject regardless.

Because of the salads and, more recently, the exercise Jeana had lost over four stone. Now when she ran her hands over her body, she could no longer feel the two extra rows of fat that give everyone the impression she had three rows of tits.

Jeana took the showerhead from the rack and began to warm her nipples. The focus on her breasts fetched back Jim’s thoughts on the subject.

‘Jees love, if you lose anymore weight I’ll have nothing to hold on to’. This kind of remark had long since stopped causing Jeana any pain. These days she let the comments go, it was easier. In this case, the remark made her smile as she knew the only time he ever touched her tits was when he was so drunk he needed something sizable to help him maintain his balance.

But as Jeana moved the showerhead downwards she smiled at what only she knew. All this dieting, the nightly exercise, it had nothing to do with turning fifty, nothing to do with Jim, or to do with giving her an escape route out of her sad monotonous life. No, it was about none of these things – it was all about Sam the postman.

Jeana clicked the showerhead setting to pulsing and began her nightly thoughts about Sam. He was perfect. He came, without fail, every morning - though this was mostly because Jeana was now posting letters to herself.

‘Are you a bit dirty down there love, or has that bike chafed you?’
Jeana lost her balance in her fight to return the showerhead to its holder – which wasn’t a graceful sight and left Jim staring at her in confusion.
‘Are you alright in there love?’ Jim asked.

‘I’m fine’ Jeana snapped adding ‘now pay attention sweetheart! You’re weeing all over the floor.’

As she regained her composure, Jeana watched her husband empty six pints of beer from his bladder. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Thirty years ago, she had found it embarrassing, though somewhat horny, the first time she had watched him pee. Back then, they had been camping. It was cold, so Jim hadn’t gone far from the tent. Jeana was sure he had noticed her watching through the crack in the tent-flap. He never tried to turn away, was semi-erect and, at one point, she was sure he had waved it at her . The sex had been good in those days.

Now, under an extra six stone of fat, Jeana could barely make out his willy. And if thirty years of shrinkage wasn’t enough, what remained, Jim’s short stubby fingers obscured.

Jim left the room and went into the bedroom. ‘Bugger’ Jeana said talking to the showerhead, adding, ‘looks like we’re not having any fun tonight.’

‘Turn the light out love.’ Jim said when Jeana got into bed beside him.

‘I was going to read for a while.’ Jeana said, not knowing why she had bothered, given that she knew the reply, which duly came.

‘Oh, give it a rest love, you know I have to be up at six and I can’t get to sleep if you have the light on.’

Jeana did as he said and within minutes of the room falling into darkness, Jim was snoring and gasping his way into a deep sleep. As she lie there, staring at the ceiling, Jeana missed the days when even if they weren’t having sex, they would at least kiss for a few minutes before sleep. But then that had stopped when Jim had gotten so fat she had to get onto her knees to kiss him; and she had gotten so fat she couldn’t be bothered.

She looked at the clock – twelve hours to go. Twelve hours would make it 10 a.m. and Sam’s usual delivery time. At ten to ten, Jeana was always outside: tending the garden, putting something in the car, sweeping the path - anything that gave her an excuse to see her postman. Over these last six months, since Jeana had first answered the door to the blond haired beauty, she had become more flirtatious. At their first meeting, Jeana had opened the door in her five-year-old nighty, covered in coffee stains and Pringles and cramming a peanut butter sandwich down her tripled-chinned neck. At the time, the only word she’d managed to spray his way was ‘thanks.’

Now, Jeana spent nearly an hour getting ready. She had new clothes, which had to come from the catalogue. Jim wasn’t keen on her working and the housekeeping money he gave her wasn’t enough to buy anything nice. She and Sam had moved far beyond one word conversations; now they would talk for ten minutes or more, their conversation becoming more flirtatious by the day.

‘One more stone to go and you’re mine!’, she said to the image of Sam she had conjured up in her head. Jeana didn’t worry that Jim might hear. She knew that the six pints, an easy night for her husband, would render him unconscious till the alarm screamed for his attention at six..........