Chapter 1

"I'll give it to you as straight and simple as I can. You have to stop smoking, quit drinking, lose fifty pounds and eliminate caffeine from your diet or die! And I don't mean in a couple of years. You are on your way to a coffin within the next six months if you don't get your head out of your ass and do what I just told you to do."

The doctor's words rattled around in my head as I drove home. I knew I smoked too much and I had tried to stop half a dozen times. And the doctor wasn't the first to tell me that I drank too much; my wife Marlene did that on an almost daily basis, but what the hell, I could handle it and it relaxed me when I got home from a hard day at the office. I did not believe the overweight part though; I was comfortable with what I carried and I'd always felt that a man's best weight was what he was most comfortable with. But, and it was a pretty big but, I did not want to die; at least not within the next six months and preferably not within the next forty or fifty years.

Regardless about what I thought about my weight and drinking I paid good money for the doctor's opinion and I had learned over the years that it is stupid to pay for an experts opinion and then not put it to use. I walked into the house, put my briefcase in the den and then headed for the wet bar in the family room. I actually had the scotch bottle in had and the stopper out when Dr. Hartmann's words came back to me -"or die!" I put the bottle back in the cabinet and my wife, who was in the kitchen, said "Something wrong dear?"

"No" I said, "I'm trying to cut down on my drinking."

She gave me a little half grin, one that said, "Fat chance" and then she said, "That's nice dear. Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes."

I went back into my den and sat down at my desk. I opened my brief case and took out the pack of Pall-Malls and shook one out and was reaching for the lighter when Hartmann's voice came back at me again -"or die!" I looked at what I was holding in my and then threw the pack and the lighter into the wastebasket. I stared at the wall for several minutes and the made a decision. I picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory.

"Michelle? Paul. I need to talk to you. Can I come over in about an hour? Thanks."

Michelle and her husband Bob were our next door neighbors and Michelle worked at the local recreation center as a personal fitness trainer. If I was going to do what Hartmann wanted me to do I was going to need help. After dinner I told Marlene that I was going next door to talk to Michelle and I thought I saw a trace of worry cross her face. She asked me why:

"Just something personal that I need to discuss with her."

Again the touch of worry, or was it just my imagination?

Michelle met my knock and invited me in. She asked me what this was about and I told her about my visit to the doctor and what he'd told me.

"My problem is that I know what I have to do, hell, I've always known, but I just can't seem to do it. I'll start an exercise program and then something will come up and I drop it. I always mean to go back to it, but somehow I never do. I'm sure that you see this in the people you work with; how do you get them to overcome it?"

She smiled and said, "Usually you set up a system with rewards. You set up a program, define your goals and then you break the program down into sections. You complete section one and you get a reward. Finish section two and you get a reward and so on."

I must have looked mystified and she laughed and said, "I don't reward you, you reward yourself." I guess I looked confused so she said, "Let me give you an example. Mr. Jones wants to lose fifty pounds and then do some weight training to tone up after the weight loss. However he has the same problem you have - he just can't seem to stay with it so I made a suggestion. I asked him how much it would be worth to him to meet his goal and what would he consider as a penalty that he could not afford to pay. He thought about it and then said if he was in a legal battle he could not afford to be fined five thousand dollars. So I said to him fine! You give me five thousand dollars. You meet your goals within the agreed upon time frame and you get the five grand back." By the time he meets the goal he has adjusted to not having the five thousand so when he gets it back, it's a gift - a reward for meeting his goal. If he back slides and doesn't follow through I give the five thousand to charity in his name so he at least gets the tax write off, but he is still out the five grand."

I must have looked skeptical because she said, "That was what worked for Mr. Jones. Other people have different ways of doing it, but the principal is the same. You just have to come up with the plan that works for you."

"Okay" I said, "I'd like to become one of your clients. Think you can help me?" She grinned and said, "I know I can help you and I know just what reward system we can use to keep you on track."

"What's that?" I wanted to know.

"Not yet. Let's work out a program first and once we set your goals we will talk about rewards. Here is what I need you to do."

The next morning I was at the rec. center and signed up for a full year membership. I met Michelle there at nine in the morning and we sat down and discussed what I needed to do. The drinking was not going to be a problem; I drank because I liked to, not because I needed to or had to. Diet and an exercise program could handle the weight loss and while smoking was not something that Michelle usually addressed as part of a fitness program, other than to discourage it, she thought that in my case she could help. We decided that my primary goal would be to lose the fifty pounds that Hartmann wanted me to lose and then work on toning up the loose skin that weight loss would bring.

"It's all doable if you stick with the program" she said and then she took me to the centers exercise room. She led me through a series of machines and showed me how to use them, filled out a card showing me the weights she wanted me to use and how many repetitions she wanted me to do. The last step was to weigh me and then we sat down to discuss how to keep me on track.

"First" Michelle asked, "How is your love life?"

"Non-existent" I answered. She gave me a questioning look and I said, "Marlene and I haven't been getting along for some time now. I still love her, but she doesn't seem to care for me anymore."

"Ever wonder why?"

"Every waking hour."

"I'm going to tell why, but I want you to remember that this is coming from a friend - someone who likes you - so don't get pissed at me. First, Marlene doesn't smoke while you are a heavy smoker. Smokers don't realize how offensive they smell to non-smokers. It's in your hair, on your skin, in your clothes and in short you stink - literally! Next is your weight. No woman wants an extra fifty-pound of flab bouncing on her when she is making love and when you put that together with your smokers stink it is a definite turn off. Lastly, you drink too much and it affects your motor skills. In short, everything that your doctor has said is wrong with you has made you a lousy lover. So there is part of your reward. You quit smoking, quit drinking and lose your fifty pounds and you can probably put things back together between you and Marlene.

"Now, here is my reward program for you. You stop smoking today and not touch another cigarette and in two weeks I'll give you a blow job."

I'm sure that my face showed the shock that her statement caused. She grinned and said, "There's more. For every ten pounds you lose I'll give you another one and when you have lost all fifty pounds I'll fuck your brains out." She laughed when she saw the look on my face, "No, I don't do that for any of my other clients, but you are a special case. You see, I'm not only giving you a reward, I'm taking revenge on my husband. He has been fucking your wife for the last two months now, so we both want you to succeed, right?"

"You know that your husband has been fucking Marlene and you haven't done anything about it?"

"No, I've been waiting for the right set of circumstances to come along. I plan on getting my revenge by letting him know I'm fucking some one else, but I'm kind of particular about who I spread my legs for and until you came along I hadn't found anyone I'd be willing to screw. You are a gift from Heaven baby and I can't think of anything more fitting than having you as my revenge fuck."

I left the rec. center and headed to my office with a lot on my mind. Yesterday Hartmann tells I'm going to die if I don't get my head out of my ass and this morning Michelle tells me that my wife is having an affair with her husband. All of a sudden I realize what those traces of worry on Marlene's face meant when I told her I had something personal to discuss with Michelle. I had promised Michelle I wouldn't say anything about it, at least not just yet, but I promised myself I would at least jerk Marlene's chain when I got the chance. The chance came sooner than I expected. When I got home that night Marlene was in the kitchen fixing dinner and for the second night in a row I surprised her by not heading for the wet bar. Dinner was a quiet affair and it wasn't until we were clearing the table that Marlene casually asked:

"So what did you need to talk to Michelle about last night?"

I gave her a non-committal look and said, "A personal matter that concerns both of us. I needed her slant on something that has been bothering me for about two months now."

"What's that?" she wanted to know.

I said, "I'll give you a hint. Your name came up in the conversation a couple of times. Now if you will excuse me I have some work I need to catch up on" and I left a worried looking Marlene standing in the kitchen.

I was up and out of bed at five the next morning and was waiting at the front door when the rec. center opened at five-thirty. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to run through the program that Michelle set out for me and then I showered and headed off to work. That night dinner was again a quiet affair and as soon as I finished helping to clear the table I went into the den to work on some papers I'd brought home. Disappearing into my den in the evening was not usual for me, but it seemed to be keeping Marlene on edge and so I decided to keep doing it until I got around to confronting her on her affair. The next night I was a half-hour late getting home and it gave me the chance to jerk Marlene's chain again.

"You're late" she said and I replied, "Yeah, those damn lawyers always take up more time than you schedule them for."

It was the truth, I was late because a meeting with the corporate legal staff ran longer than expected, but Marlene didn't know it was business and not personal. For the next several weeks my schedule was basically the same; up at five to be at the rec. center when it opened, run my program and then head to work. It sounds a lot easier than it was. The days were absolute hell as I worked at kicking the nicotine habit. I was chewing three and four packs of gum a day, drinking black coffee by the gallon (even though Hartmann had warned me to give up caffeine) and by the end of the second week I had calmed down to the point where I actually thought I could kick the habit for good.

Also during that period I kept hitting Marlene with little digs about things to keep her worried. One night I asked her to estimate the value of her jewelry and when she asked me why I said my lawyer wanted a statement of our net worth. Another time I told Marlene that I needed her to be at home at a specific time and when she asked me why I told her I had made an appointment with a contractor to come in and give me an estimate on getting the place fixed up. When she wanted to know why I told her that it was something else the lawyer wanted done.

Wednesday, the end of the second week I got to the rec. center at five-thirty and found Michelle waiting for me. She asked me to follow her to her office and then she shut and locked the door.

"What have you been telling Marlene?"

I told her about the mind games that I had been playing and she laughed, "Well, you'll be pleased to know that they are having an effect. She has been talking to Bob and he has been very nervous around me lately." Then she came over to me and sniffed my hair and my skin and asked, "How long has it been since you had your last cigarette?"

I told her it had been sixteen days. She smiled and pushed me back until I was sitting on the edge of her desk, "Time then for your first reward" and she went to her knees in front of me. It was some of the best head I'd ever received, but unfortunately it had been some time since I'd had sex of any kind and I came much too quickly. I warned Michelle when I was about to cum and she just pulled me deeper into her mouth and swallowed all I had to give. It was a new experience for me. Marlene used to suck my cock, she even said she liked it, but she never let me cum in her mouth. Michelle looked up at me:

"Poor baby. It's been a long while for you, hasn't it?" I nodded a yes and she said, "Don't worry baby, you'll last longer next time. How close are you to your first ten pound loss?" I told her that it had been eight and a half pounds the day before and she smiled, "Work hard today baby and I'll look forward to seeing you on Friday morning. I was eleven pounds down when I saw her Friday and by the time she got done draining me I felt like I'd lost another ten. A man could learn to like her reward system.

During that almost three-week period things had been a little tense at my house. Marlene was on pins and needles over what she thought I might be doing about what she thought I thought she was doing. I, on the other hand, was barely talking to her. I got up to go to the center before she did, went to work from the center, came home ate dinner and then went into my den to work on things I'd brought home with me. Basically I ignored Marlene, determined to make her make the first move. What would happen then I didn't know. I hoped that we might be able to work things out because I did love the silly bitch, even if she was fucking someone else behind my back. In a way I could hardly blame her; everything that Michelle had told me about why Marlene might not find me physically attractive anymore was true, but I was still pissed. Marlene could have said something about it to me and maybe we could have corrected the problems. Well, probably not; I'd have just gotten my back up at the suggestion that I drank too much and smoked too much and we would have just argued.

By the third week I had my schedule down pat. Even though I was only supposed to work my program every other day on M-W-F I still went to the center on Tuesday and Thursday and walked the treadmill, rode the bicycle, or swap laps in the pool. On Thursday of that third week I got up at five as usual, but decided to skip going to the center that morning. I was in the den working on my income tax when I heard the front door open and close. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was a quarter after six and I knew that Marlene never got out of bed before seven. I got up and opened the den door a crack and saw Michelle's husband Bob go up the stairs and into our bedroom. Marlene must have given him a key. I waited a minute or so and then I quietly went up the stairs. The bedroom door was open so I stood off to the side and listened. I heard noises, but nothing I could make out so I cautiously peeked around the doorframe.

Bob and Marlene were in a sixty-nine with Bob on top. The bedside lamp was on and I got a good view of Marlene's mouth sliding up and down on Bob's cock and I suddenly found that, in addition to the anger that the sight caused me, I also had a very stiff dick. I watched as Marlene sucked that cock and was suddenly sorry that I wasn't going to be able to watch the rest of what was going to happen. Once they stopped going sixty-nine they would probably notice me and I wasn't ready for the confrontation - not just yet. I quietly went back down the stairs, left the house and drove to the center. Marlene was in her office and I told her what just happened.