Body Image

Michael sniffed and nodded.

"That's a good girl," Kathleen said. "Everything's going to be fine from now on. You'll see. You just leave everything up to me."

***

"Do you…do you like my hair like this?"

It was a month after the confrontation with his wife and Michael was running a hand through the body wave of his long henna-colored hair. It was an unconscious and totally feminine gesture that Michael had developed quite on his own. Kathleen knew it was important to reinforce his positive self-image. She was aware of how he appeared to himself: the lush curls framing his delicate face, large silver hoops dangling from his ears.

"It's beautiful darling," Kathleen said and smiled. "But what I think I like best of all is the way you fill out the top of your dress. I wish I had breasts that size."

Oh, god, no you don't, Michael wanted to say, but he didn't want to seem ungrateful. The breasts Kathleen had given him were just too large. They nearly spilled out the low-cut top of his dress and nearly everything else that he wore. It had taken a lot of time to get used to them. They always seemed to be in the way somehow and the strange weight of them kind of threw off his center of gravity. Somewhere, in the dim recesses of what was left of his mind, Michael remembered thinking of large breasts as a positive thing. But now, for the life of him, he couldn't remember why. They were just so inconvenient and they made him feel so conspicuous. The way men stared at them…it wasn't sexy at all. It was just embarrassing and demeaning!

Of course, the high-heels that he always wore didn't help his balance either, or the troublesome extra layers of fat that now softened and rounded out his upper thighs and buttocks. But somehow he couldn't give up the high-heels no matter how uncomfortable they were and he couldn't lose the weight no matter how much he dieted. He had always been considered a thin person; at least it had seemed that way to him.