Chapter 6

Day 7 Tuesday

Denise found it difficult to believe that she had actually managed to last an entire week in the program. The exercises had progressed a little in difficulty, but she was managing them without a problem. The meals were great. She was still living in the basement. All in all, things would have been pretty good except for being naked all of the time and the continual demands for sex by Dale.

That morning, Dale had intercourse with her. She had been in the closet on her hands and knees with her ass sticking out through the curtains while he pounded into her from the rear. It was another very humiliating and degrading experience. At least she had used lubricant this time and it wasn't a painful experience.

She looked up from her computer in time to see Karen enter her cubicle. Turning to look at her boss, she asked, "What's up?"

"Just wanted to check on you. You didn't seem yourself last Friday," Karen answered. She was worried since it looked like Denise was beginning to fall behind on her work. The company would have to pay a significant fee if it failed to deliver the contracted documentation on time. It wasn't so much the money or the effort going into it. She could always add another person on the project and get it finished on time. It was just that Denise was normally a very consistent worker and her lousy performance over the past week had been very unusual.

"I'm doing fine," Denise answered in a flat tone of voice.

Karen nodded her head and studied Denise closely. It wasn't until she looked at Denise's wrists that she realized the woman had lost a little weight. She asked, "Have you lost weight?"

"I don't know," Denise answered surprised by the fact that she didn't know. Dale didn't have a weight scale anywhere in the house. She hadn't been counting calories.

"It looks like you dropped a couple of pounds," Karen said. She was concerned that Denise had gone on one of those crazy diets where they drop too much weight too quickly. Earlier that year, they had to take a woman out of the office on a stretcher when she passed out due to low blood sugar.

"I guess," Denise answered.

Wanting to make sure that Denise wouldn't keel over on her, Karen asked, "You aren't on some sort of crazy diet, are you?"

Denise almost choked on hearing the question. There was no way that she was going to describe what she was actually doing in order to lose weight. She could imagine how it would sound if she were to answer that she was sucking a cock rather than snacking on chips. She said, "It is not a crazy diet."

"You're sure," Karen asked.

Denise wasn't sure that what she was doing was sane, but the diet wasn't crazy. There wasn't really a diet. She answered, "I'm sure."

"Okay," Karen said leaving the cubicle. There was something off in how Denise was acting, but she couldn't put a finger on it. She had never really been all that open, but now it seemed like there was some huge secret looming behind her.

Denise worked on the user manual until lunch time. She picked up her bag lunch and headed over to the lunch room. She took her normal place at her usual table and opened the bag. Karen walked past and glanced at the submarine sandwich with more than a little surprise. She paused and asked, "Is that your lunch?"

"Yes," Denise answered.

"That's more than you usually eat," Karen said wondering if the weight loss was actually a symptom of a serious health problem.

"I guess," Denise answered. She had been eating the same kind of lunch every day since joining the program. She thought back to the salads that she used to eat. She picked up the sandwich and said, "I'm not really on a diet. I've just been pretty busy lately."

"Oh," Karen said. She noticed that Denise had a slightly haunted look in her eye. Taking a wild guess, she asked, "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Not really," Denise answered focusing on her sandwich.

Her words sounded false. Concerned, Karen went on her way. There wasn't too much that she could do if one of her employees got into an abusive relationship. She'd watch and if things looked like they were getting real bad, she'd mention some of the programs intended for women in abusive relationships. She probably wouldn't even mention it directly, but suggest that someone else talk to her.

Denise discovered a chocolate bar at the bottom of her lunch bag. It wasn't one of the large bars, but a nice little one that would be demolished in two bites. It was the last thing that she had expected to find. She smiled and said, "That Susan. I'm mean to her and then she does something like this."

After lunch, Denise went back to work. She had a list of changes that had to be made to the user manual for the software program. Most of the work was using the program and taking screen shots of the user interface and then filling in a little text around the pictures. She'd worked on the manual for the previous version of the program and the changes were actually pretty minor.

The afternoon passed quickly as she addressed one item at a time. Her mind refused to dwell on her personal life making it easier to concentrate on her work. She worked without taking the two or three breaks that she used to take to visit the vending machine. Before she knew it, she had caught up with the scheduled work and finished her work for the day. It was still a little early, but she decided that she could head home rather than get started on the next section of the manual.

Since she had returned home earlier than usual that evening, she beat Dale and Susan back to the house. It was kind of strange to be alone in the house. After undressing in the basement, she sat on the edge of her bed. She was hunched over with her arms held in front of her body. Despite being undressed, there wasn't much to see of her body by the way she sat.

After a few minutes, she realized that she was staring at the fake closet in the corner. Looking at it, she wondered why Dale insisted on not looking at her during sex. She was walking around naked the rest of time so it couldn't be that he was totally disgusted by her appearance.

His refusal to look at her when depositing his come on or in her really hurt her feelings. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She remembered hearing a guy tell another about how to have sex with an ugly woman. Aloud, she repeated his comment, "Put a flag over her face and fuck her for glory."

It was an extremely nasty comment, but it seemed to her that was exactly what Dale was doing. Getting up, she paced around the basement allowing her anger to build. She wasn't a come receptacle for some arrogant bastard. She didn't deserve to be treated in that callous manner. She came to the decision that she was going to let him know her thoughts on the matter.

Hearing the front door open, she went up the stairs in time to greet Susan. Even before Susan had a chance to undress, Denise asked, "Why doesn't he look at me when he's making me have sex with him?"

Susan looked pained upon hearing the question and answered, "You have to see it to understand it."

"I don't understand," Denise said.

"I'll video tape you giving him a blowjob and then you'll see what he would be looking at," Susan said. She didn't really want to do it now, but she knew that one day such a video would be made. She knew that Denise would be devastated by it.

"I don't want a video tape made of me having sex," Denise said flatly. For all she knew, it would end up on the internet. She wondered if that was how Dale was controlling Susan. A video of her having sex would be a powerful lever to use for keeping her around. Arguing against that was the fact the Susan didn't seem to be resentful or acting like she was there against her will.

"You need to see it in order to understand why he doesn't want to look at you. You need to see it in order to understand what we mean when we say that you're a fat woman," Susan countered.

"I don't care. You're not making a video tape of me," Denise said crossing her arms. It felt a little strange doing that when standing naked.

Understanding fully what Denise was thinking, Susan shook her head and said, "Come into my room. I'd like to show you something."

Denise followed Susan into her bedroom. Susan went over to the computer and a few seconds later a video was playing on the monitor. A much fatter Susan was on her knees giving Dale a blowjob. Dale was wearing a blindfold so that didn't have to look at Susan. Denise watched the video in stunned silence. Although she had seen her friend perform the same or similar acts over the past week, she had not expected what was in that video.

Susan said, "That video was taken when I had been in the program for about ten days."

"You look like... ," Denise started to say. She didn't know how to describe her friend's appearance in the video. Susan looked like a lump of fat. There was this horrible expression on her face. Despite the fact that Dale couldn't see her, she was still covering as much of her body as possible as though completely ashamed of her appearance. Her actions looked mechanical and totally uninspired.

"Pretty ugly isn't it?" Susan asked.

"Yes, it is," Denise answered not realizing that it was the same kind of honest comment that she had been hearing about her sexual performance over the past week.

Susan started up another video. Although Susan had lost a lot of weight, she still looked like a mountain of fat hiding her body in that video. In a way, the woman shown in that video looked even worse than the woman in the first video. The expression on the face was one of loathing and disgust. Her posture, if possible, was even worse. Susan said, "That was me after being in the program for about six months."

"You look like I feel," Denise said staring at the video. She couldn't understand why Susan even kept it around. She would have deleted it after seeing it for the first time.

"This was taken ten days after that last video," Susan said starting another video to play. The woman portrayed in the video looked completely different. She was sitting up straight with her body clearly on display. Even though she was still overweight, it wasn't as noticeable. There was an expression of enjoyment on her face. Her actions were lively and interested.

"It is like it isn't the same person," Denise said struck by the contrast between it and the previous two videos. In the last video, Susan had looked sexy. The nearly imperceptible difference in weight didn't explain the contrast between the two videos.

"Those last two are before and after videos. In the first one I was a fat woman. In the second one I wasn't," Susan said. She shook her head and said, "I can understand why he didn't want to look at me when I was a fat woman."

"Are you saying that I look like that?" Denise said.

"I'll make a video tonight and you'll see what you look like," Susan said. She had to admit that Denise looked even worse during sex than she had during her early days in the program.

"Maybe," Denise said. After seeing the videos, she was curious what she looked like.

"I hated being a fat woman," Susan said with anger in her voice. She wondered how she had managed to live like that. She started the second video and watched it shaking her head. After it was over, she said, "I hate the person that I was at that time. I never want to be that person again."

"You like yourself more now?" Denise asked. She wondered if being a slut was a better deal than being fat.

"Definitely," Susan answered.

An hour later, Denise was on her knees sucking Dale's cock while Susan videoed the action. Dale was wearing a blindfold and leaning against the back of a chair. Denise practiced what she had learned from Susan to end the blowjob as quickly as possible. At least this time he didn't act like someone was taking sandpaper to his cock.

Dinner that night was lemon chicken, steamed asparagus, and boiled carrots. It was a very good meal and quite filling. After dinner she and Susan washed the dishes. That was followed by the exercise program, a short time in the sauna, and a longer time in the pool. There was one minor variation; Dale had given her a sports bra to wear while jogging. She appreciated the support for her rather substantial breasts.

She was doing a simple breast stroke in the shallow end of the pool when Susan finished her laps. Denise said, "I just realized that it was Tuesday night."

"So what?" Susan asked.

"One of my favorite shows is on tonight. I guess I missed it," Denise said.

"I used to spend almost every evening watching television. I'd curl up on my couch and watch some lame comedy show and munch on cookies or chips," Susan said. Since starting the program, she had almost completely given up television. The only exception was the occasional evening when Dale ordered an on-demand movie. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Now it seems like I'm too busy to watch television."

"I guess we are a little busier," Denise said. She had spent the entire evening moving around the house doing housework, exercises, and other activities. Somehow the time seemed to fly.