At Robyn's insistence, she and Brian hadn't moved in together, and wouldn't until they were legally married. To her, sharing a place would feel tawdry and meaningless, absent a genuine lifelong commitment.

In that sense, she had a traditional view of marriage. 

But only in that sense. 

She had thought nothing of letting Brian finger her on their first date and sleeping with him on their third. And in the subsequent year-and-a-half before he proposed, they had engaged in almost every sexual act they could think of, except those involving a third person or featured prominently in German fetish porn.

On this night they were at Robyn's house and they didn't have sex at all. Brian's overtures were not rebuffed, exactly, but not reciprocated, either. Rather than try to overcome her apparent indifference, he decided to go to sleep.

"Well, good night, hon," Brian said. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips and she made barely any effort to kiss him back. 

"Good night," she said, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

He hesitated before asking, "What's up?"

"Nothing," she said and he chose to accept her answer. It had been a long day and he was very tired. He settled back into his pillow and closed his eyes.

He had nearly drifted off to sleep when Robyn said, "I'm thinking of going on a diet."

Brian was not the smartest person in the world. He was not even the smartest person in this bed. But if there's one thing he learned from his first marriage, it's to avoid getting sucked into a conversation about weight.

So he kept his eyes closed and remained very still, hoping that the danger would pass. It was the same strategy he used as a child when he imagined that his room was crawling with monsters. It seemed to work, but the monsters weren't real and his fiancée was.

"Did you hear what I said?" she asked, with a hint of irritation. "I'm thinking of going on a diet."

He opened his eyes. He had no idea what she wanted to hear. "OK," he said noncommittally and hoped that was enough.

It wasn't.

"What do you think about that?" she persisted.

Brian was walking through a mine field now. He had to step lightly. "I think..." he began. "That you should do... whatever makes you happy." There was an expectant silence and Brian continued, "I don't think you're fat, if that's what you're asking." He immediately realized that he had made a huge mistake. A rookie mistake.

"That wasn't what I was asking," she said acidly and turned away from him.

"Robyn, come on," he pleaded, pressing his body against hers. "I just proposed to you yesterday. Would I have done that if I didn't think you're perfect the way you are?" Brian smiled to himself. Nailed it!

"All right," Robyn said, backing down in the face of his unassailable logic. "Thank you." She didn't sound angry any more, but she didn't sound mollified, either.

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"Welcome to Tenacity for Women!"

Robyn had made her appointment with Debbie over the phone. Based on Debbie's effervescent and encouraging voice, Robyn pictured a slender, energetic blonde with a can-do attitude, perky boobs and an impossibly white smile. And she was right. Except Debbie was Asian-American with bone-straight black hair, which raised the possibility that Robyn's beauty ideal was just a touch racist.

"Thanks," Robyn said.

They were in a small, spartan office that Debbie shared with someone else, their two cantilevered desks pushed together, face-to-face. The absence of personal items, save an environmentally friendly stainless steel water bottle on Debbie's desk, and a Muscle & Fitness calendar on her coworker's otherwise bare wall, indicated that neither of them spent much time here.

"Are you ready for a whole new you?" Debbie asked her with a level of earnest enthusiasm that Robyn could only classify as canine.

"I am," said Robyn resolutely. "I'm getting married."

"You are? That is fantastic! When is the wedding?"

"Six months."

"Oh." A wrinkle of concern appeared between Debbie's eyebrows. "That's not a lot of time."

"Well, he proposed six months ago. I'm determined to get down to wedding weight, but I guess I've been kind of procrastinating." Debbie said nothing and, to break the reproachful silence, Robyn added, "You know how it is."

"I don't," Debbie said. And it was clear that she didn't. But her consternation was short-lived. "So," Debbie said brightly, the wrinkle vanishing without a trace, "let's see what we're dealing with. Stand up, please."

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Until Debbie used them on her, Robyn was pretty sure she had never heard the word "caliper." Had she been forced to guess its purpose, she would have said that it was a hook-hand for a crocodyliphobic pirate. But it was, in fact, used to measure body fat.

And from Debbie's concerned expression, Robyn had a lot of it.

As Robyn fidgeted uncomfortably, Debbie took measurements — at her bicep, her thigh, her abdomen — methodically pinching Robyn's skin with cold steel prongs, gathering gelatinous folds of lardaceous flesh, entering each result on her tablet with a sad shake of her head.

While this was going on, the door opened and Debbie's office-mate walked in.

"Jesus," Robyn muttered to herself when she saw him.

"I know, right?" Debbie agreed as she lifted the back of Robyn's T-shirt and pinched a generous fold of subscapular fat. And then, "Hey, Dave."

Dave was — there is really no other way to put this — fucking gorgeous. He was tall, six feet at least, with an ectomorphic swimmer's body. Lean muscle coiled around a streamlined frame. Below his dark, close-cropped hair were pale blue eyes, framed by ophthalmologically unnecessary wire-rim glasses. A thin layer of dark stubble shaded his prominent, catalog-model cheekbones.

Robyn wasn't certain, but she thought she felt herself ovulating.

"Sorry, Deb," Dave said, opening a desk drawer. "Just need a pen."

Robyn was wildly self-conscious standing in front of this Adonis, while Debbie poked and measured her like a landed fish. But when she noticed that he hadn't even glanced in her direction, she stopped feeling embarrassed. And started feeling offended.

She didn't want him leering at her, but he hadn't even deigned to acknowledge her existence at all.

Surprise, surprise, she thought as Dave and his fake glasses left with a cheap plastic Bic. The super-hot guy is also an asshole.

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A little later, Robyn was anxiously awaiting the results. Debbie's fingers tapped at her tablet, calculating and recalculating, until Debbie found a result she was pleased with.

"Well," said Debbie, "the good news is that we can get you in shape in time for your wedding."

"What's the bad news?" Robyn asked warily.

"There is no bad news," Debbie said brightly. "Results are guaranteed!"

"So if I don't lose all the weight I want, I get my money back?"

"You'll lose the weight," Debbie said confidently.

"But what if I don't?" Robyn pressed.

"You will."

"But what if I don't?"

Robyn saw the briefest flash of anger in Debbie's eyes, a tightening of her jaw. Debbie inhaled deeply through her nose, held her breath for a second, then exhaled slowly through her mouth, centering herself.

"Robyn, I need you to be committed," Debbie said calmly but emphatically. "Are you committed, Robyn?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess."

"You can't guess!" That anger again. "I need to know that this is truly what you want!"

"I am absolutely committed," Robyn said, although she knew full well that her definition of "committed" was a far cry from Debbie's. The difference between a Weight Loss Evangelist and a Weight Loss Unitarian.

"Yay!" Debbie clapped her hands together, like the bubble-headed blonde she wasn't. "You just have to sign some paperwork and then we can get started!"

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