I threw down my pencil in disgust as the words on the page danced in front of my eyes. I still had three days to finish a career-making report and I was totally sick of it. A glance out the window didn’t help. It was mid-morning on a warm sunny Spring day and the air sparkled over the canyons of Manhattan.
I got up, stretched, and walked down the hall to the Ladies’ Room. I looked in the mirror and liked part of what I saw. I know I have a pretty face and my make-up and shoulder length reddish-brown hair looked good that day. I tried not to look below the neck, but, as always, I did. Fat! A twenty five year old, I thought, should be thin and willowy, but I was -- how should I say? -- hefty, full-figured, zaftig. In other words, fat. Everything was in proportion but there was simply too much. I had worn a loose fitting blouse outside my skirt to try and hide my size, but, let's face it, I'm a big girl. Even an expensive bra designed for reduction and containment couldn't disguise my ample proportions.
I walked back to my office and knew that I wouldn’t get another stitch of work done that morning. I needed to leave the building, clear my head, and get refocused on that damned report. After I rode down the elevator I wandered to a street nearby where I window shopped with nothing in particular in mind.
I soon found myself in front of a bookstore and, being an avid reader, went in and started to browse. As always, I ended up in the Women’s Books section and picked off the shelf the latest lesbian whinefest. Well, I thought, there was one good thing about being a lesbian. Thank God my size had never been an issue with any of my girlfriends and they luxuriated in my ample contours.
Just then I noticed that someone was standing next to me. I glanced over and saw one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life. She was about 50 with fine regular features and lovely silvery hair. People tend to use the word "handsome" for women of that certain age, but she was flat-out beautiful. She looked over toward me and I was instantly enchanted by her large twinkling brown eyes. Even though she was looking right at me I couldn’t keep myself from noticing that she had a large lush curvaceous body that, unlike mine, seemed to make her look exactly the way God had meant her to look..
“Are you a New Yorker?” she asked me. I nodded.
“I’m here from out of town and this is the first time I have ever been here.”
“I hope you like it,” I said, amazed that I couldn’t think of anything less banal to say.
“Oh, I love it,” she said. “I’m leaving tomorrow, though, and I have a million questions about this wonderful place.”
Keeping up the banality, the best I could come up with was “Oh?”
“If you're not in a hurry,” she said, “would you let me buy you an espresso and ask you some of those questions?” I saw she was wearing a diamond engagement ring and a wedding ring on her left hand, but felt like I was being pulled to her by some magnetic force. “Love to,” I said.