Chapter Two

Smokey is well on her way to getting her life back in control. Can she keep it up?

Smokey was running.

She ran flat out. She had never moved like this before. Her legs were numb but she kept going. She was invincible. She was unbeatable. She was a gladiator. She was....going to pass out.

“Don't stop, lard butt!” thundered her fearsome personal trainer, Pierre, behind her. “I'ma whip you if you do!”

He had a whip? That wasn't mentioned in the brochure. “I'm dying!” she panted. “I need water!”

“You'll get water when I give it to you.” Pierre stood before her, arms folded, biceps bulging like tree trunks. His dark brown eyes glinted with menace. When he smiled he looked like those creatures in Alien.

Tosser!

Smokey didn't dare say it out loud though. He would make her do push-ups. “Grrrr.” She gritted her teeth and forced herself to move. Her thighs burned like hell and she was drenched in sweat, but she kept on going.

“I am going to lose weight!” yelled Pierre. “Say it, woman!”

“I....am....going.” Her voice came out little more than a croak.

Pierre slammed his fist down on the treadmill. “I want more passion!”

“I AM GOING TO LOSE WEIGHT!” screamed Smokey.

“We're gonna trim that fast a*s!”

“Yes!”

“Even if it kills you!” enthused Pierre, pumping his fist in the air.

“Even if it...wait. What?”

“Keep moving, girl. I wanna see you drown in sweat!”

Speaking of drowning. That is exactly what Smokey remembered trying to do (in the shower) on that fateful day, not too long ago, after the events at her sisters wedding.

***

“You chucked up? On his shoes?” exclaimed Callinda. Her eyes grew wide with wonder and she suppressed a giggle.

“Leave me alone,” wailed Smokey. “I just want to die in peace.”

She stood, stark naked, in the shower. Callinda had been relaxing in their flat, eating Doritos's, when Smokey had come barging through the front door, ashen faced, sweaty and tearful.

She'd gone straight to the bathroom, ripped off her dress and turned on the shower at full blast, where she now stood, face turned up to the head, waiting for the water to somehow drown her.

She did not want to live.

Never before had she been so embarrassed in her life. She'd literally wanted the ground to open up and swallow her when she'd reproduced the remnants of her rather large breakfast. She'd vomited her guts out on Mr. Beautiful's shoes! Oh, why?! Why did it have to happen to her? It was not like she was a bad person, she regularly gave any pennies she could spare to a variety of charities. Like the Queen.

“Come out, Smokey. We can talk about this around a tub of B&J's,” soothed Callinda, in the only way she knew possible.

“Leave me alooooooone,” sobbed Smokey. “I just want to die in peace.”

“Stop being an idiot, Smokes,” said Callinda sternly. “There isn't a problem a good tub of ice-cream can't solve.”

Smokey grabbed a loofah and scrubbed herself while she pondered Callinda's words. The smell of her favorite shower gel was enough to calm her a little. As hot water cascaded over her body she decided there was truth in them. Ice-cream made everything better.

“Hurry up, Smokes,” yelled Callinda as she left the bathroom. “I'll get the stuff ready.”

“Alright,” replied Smokey, gritting her teeth when the horrible memory flashed across her eyes again. It didn't matter how hard she tried to eject it from her brain, it was stuck, like bread in a battered toaster.

She lathered the foamy shower gel over her entire body until she resembled a snowman. It would usually have made her laugh, but today was different. She couldn't help but think how fat she looked when she caught her reflection in the shower glass. Her bottom was double, maybe triple, the size it should be, and her hips were as wide as a woman who's given birth a fair few times. She didn't even want to look at her arms, which might as well be wings, so wide and flabby were they. And the worst bit was the cellulite! Dear God, it was horrid. It was everywhere. She was only 28!

Smokey couldn't deny it. She was fat.

“Ohhhhhh,” she groaned. “I'm a hippo.”

The only good thing about her were her b***s. They were rather lovely, but who noticed a fat woman's chest anyway? Everybody raved about skinny women's b**b's. Fat women didn't get a look in. They were invisible to the world.

“I need to lose weight.” Smokey glared at herself in the glass. “My fat a*s needs trimming.” She threw down the loofah.

This was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for her entire miserable life. Throwing up on Mr. Beautiful was the trigger. If she could get herself into shape, maybe she could finally sort her life out. After all, she only noticed skinny people walking around with broad, self-satisfied smiles on their mugs. She could become one of them. She never saw a fat person looking happy.

She strode out of the bathroom as naked as the day she was born, and into the kitchen. Callinda didn't bat an eyelid, she was used to seeing her best friend starkers.

“Put the damn ice-cream away, Cally. I don't want it,” Smokey declared. To prove her point she took the tub of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough and threw it out of the window.

“Oi!” cried Callinda. “That cost five quid!”

“I'll buy you another one,” said Smokey. “See this fat?” She pinched her hip and pulled the flab. “See this?”

“Too often,” replied Callinda dryly. “I've seen you naked more times than any boyfriend you've ever had.”

“Well, not any more,” vowed Smokey. “I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to get fit.”

Callinda rolled her eyes. How often had she heard this? “Okay, honey. Sure.” She gave it three hours before her beloved best friend caved.

“I'm serious,” insisted Smokey. “I can't stand being overweight anymore. I have to do this.”

“And I totally support you, babes,” Callinda assured her.

They had met over seventeen years ago when they were starting secondary school. At the time Smokey had been a fat, spotty loner. Callinda had been the polar opposite, she had been the most popular girl in school with her lovely and long, thick black hair, dark brown eyes and smooth, cappuccino colored skin, not to mention her talent on the tennis court.

Somehow, in some inexplicable way that no-one really understood, they'd become friends, and it had lasted through the ages, through countless boyfriends, jobs, wardrobe malfunctions and many a drunken spectacle.

“I may not get your redonkulous body,” Smokey said, as she headed back to her bedroom. “But I'm sure as hell going to lose this a*s!”

She slammed he door behind her, turned her laptop on and Googled the nearest personal trainer that she could afford. Luckily for her, sort of, Smokey was in a well paid job. Unfortunately the job consisted of her catering to the every whim of a very famous Hollywood actress who was not averse to demanding the most outrageous items at the most ludicrous hours. But the Oscar winning blond bombshell, Victoria Diamond, had a good heart. Most days.

“Found him!” yelled Smokey, when she located a promising trainer. She dived for the phone. “And so it begins...”

***

“I think my lung just exploded,” panted Smokey. She was sprawled on the floor in the foetus position. “Call an ambulance.”

Pierre rolled his eyes. “Riiggght.” He gave Smokey a not too gentle tap on the backside with his foot. “You've lost over seven hundred calories. You can die with honour.”

From where she lay, Smokey flipped him the bird. It took much effort, but it was satisfying.

“I saw that,” he muttered, walking away.

“How?” she exclaimed. “Impossible.”

“Get off your a*s and take a shower. You smell like a rat,” he called over his shoulder. “Look like one too.”

Smokey sat up and swore at him in a very loud voice. When she was content she looked down at herself. She'd lost nearly a stone and a half in six weeks. It was worth the torture. Her butt was smaller, her stomach flatter. Even her face was sprouting the semblance of cheekbones. She didn't even know she had some!

She was getting her life back on track.

Little did she know what was waiting for her around the corner.