Fat Chance

By Tony Spencer

She slimmed, he slimmed; she cheated, so he fattenened her up and sent her to the market. Surely it's all over now bar the shouting?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Spencer
• Release date: Dec 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301863044

Tony Spencer

Have published 34 books since 1998, one out of print, 22 available on Smashwords, 6 on Wattpad and 5 on Amazon. I started writing fiction in 2012. I brought out a glut of little books as soon as I realised self publishing was an option, but now I am settling down to produce one novel and a collection of other stories each year. A grandfather of three angels, happily married for 42 years to another angel, living in Hampshire, England, about 35 miles west of London. I had worked for over 40 years as a printer and proofreader but retired in 2015 and hoping to spend more time writing. Also an editor of a community magazine, football programmes and have written weekly sports reports now for almost 20 years in local newspapers. Now concentrating on romantic fiction, mostly short stories, with occasional novellas and novels. Proud to be a member of the KCEditions independent publishing house of Canada.

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Fat Chance

Tony Spencer

Published by Tony Spencer at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 Tony Spencer

Smashword Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

FINDING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

FLASH, BANG, WALLOP, WHAT A PICTURE!

BANE IN SPAIN, PAIN & GAIN

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Ok, I admit it, I am fat and a slob. I’ve always been fat, well since I left school, anyway. But I’ve never considered myself a slob until my wife called me that over twelve months ago.

Then she must've called me much worse names just six months ago and I could have called her a few things myself, only by then the fight had gone out of me and I got out of town. If I am honest, and I am sitting here in the dark by myself tapping this missive into my computer, so I guess this is the proper time to be truthful.

So, Jerry Cox was and is a fat slob. There you are, I’ve said it, accepted it, and now moving on. And that’s not the only moving on I have done, hence me documenting my sorry tale, so that others might read and learn … or weep if you have to.

I first met my wife Maisie at school but we weren’t exactly childhood sweethearts as we didn’t start to date until a couple of years later, when I was halfway through my car mechanics apprenticeship (yes, they used to have proper apprenticeships in those days), and she was two-thirds of her way through college , qualifying in insurance and banking. She was smarter than I was and I felt I was better working with my hands rather than my brain. Horses for courses, I guess.

I was already what I would describe as ‘comfortably chunky’ and Maisie was maybe twenty pounds overweight when we started going out together. We enjoyed typical teenage diets, burgers and chips and beer. I was short and stumpy, about five-six, and always ugly. It was in my genes, my father was an ugly son-of-a-bitch and particularly nasty with it, I never knew my grandfather, but I guess my father had to get his looks and nature from somewhere.

I always thought I’d missed my father’s nasty gene, as I was so easy going, but now I know it was there all along and it has really come home to roost recently. I surpassed myself, even out-nastied my father, I’m not proud of it, I can tell you. My excuse is that I was provoked, oh boy, provoked with knobs on.

My mother, though, was an angel and she needed to be to put up with my violent womanising father and that must be where I got my patience and loyalty traits from. So I was ugly but sweet natured, perhaps that made me more attractive for a limited period of time, I was certainly unusually trusting and that was my downfall.

Maisie was only about five-three, broad-hipped but with a waspish waist and a rack to die for. While I was easy-going and laid back, she was driven, lively and full of life. Although she wasn’t classically beautiful, she was sexy, vivacious and attractive. As I say, she was a tad overweight at the time I met her but she could carry it. Her skin was dark and tanned easily, with shoulder-length thick brown hair with a reddish hint, dark hazel eyes and even white teeth, so she was pretty and, when she smiled, she was simply lovely, well I always thought so.

Although I was also packing a few pounds at that time I was still active, playing football at the weekends and training one or two evenings a week. We enjoyed hiking long distances at the weekend but I liked my beer too much and my waistline was slowly losing the battle and I honestly didn’t put up much of a fight. I had only been out with three or four girls before we started going steady and I think that Maisie only had one serious boyfriend before she latched onto me. I thought we made the perfect couple. But damn it, what do I know?

I was never ambitious. A comfortable home, a passionate squeeze to come home to or go out with, regular meals and sufficient beer money was all I ever wanted from life and, for as long as I could remember, life was good. My job repairing cars at first and later trucks, was not physically demanding and I enjoyed the work at a small but long-established family firm. I think Trimblett & Son started doing up bicycles when Queen Vic was on the throne. I wasn’t looking for promotion and responsibility, I preferred an easy life. Maisie, however, was very ambitious and prepared to work hard to climb her way up the greasy pole.

We married at the registry office rather than have the white wedding most girls desire and I loved Maisie all the more for that. Boy, was I blinkered, I never had a clue. We used the money both our parents had saved for the wedding on the deposit on the house. The building society took one look at us and decided we would probably start a family sooner rather than later so only offered me a fifteen-year mortgage. He was wrong about the family, as it happens, but it has meant that we’ve owned the place lock, stock and barrel now for the last five years.

As soon as Maisie left college, she started at our local branch of National Provincial Bank as a clerk. She was a little self-conscious about her appearance and started jogging in the evenings several times a week. I joined her at first, although we always ended up at the pub afterwards, she with sparkling water and me with a couple or three best bitters. Later she joined a gym instead of jogging and I decided early doors that I don’t do gyms. I went back to football training with the boys once a week and rolled home late after a bellyful in the pub, undoing all that hard work, afterwards. My play at darts was better than my passing and tackling, which wasn’t surprising.

So Maisie became svelte-like in her twenties and I got fat. She started taking more pride in her appearance, having her hair done more regularly and spending an increasing amount on smart clothes and killer high heels for work. I grew my hair long, stopped shaving under my nose and developed a dart-player’s beer belly.

We didn’t have children as it happened and with hindsight that was a good thing. Maisie was climbing the promotion ladder at work and wanted to put off starting a family until she had reached as far as she could go. She never really stopped reaching. Me, I was happy to go along with anything she wanted, she had me bent around her little finger. I enjoyed an easy-going life, too. See, you knew that already, you’ve come to know me so well in such a short space of time! Besides, my brother and two sisters made up for my laziness in the parental stakes by expanding the Cox gene pool, presenting me with nine nieces and nephews between them. Maisie’s brother Colin also did his bit for the Goddards family tree, marrying twice and having two boys with his first wife and a boy and twin daughters with the second, so Maisie’s genes were also more than covered. Mind you, Christmas and birthdays began to cost us a small fortune.

As the only childless couple in the family, by default