Matthew stepped onto the scales. Trish, the coordinator, read out his weight. He'd lost three pounds, bringing him to his target weight. He got the loudest cheer of the night. He smiled modestly. Under cover of writing down his achievement on his Weight Warriors pocket card, he looked the women over.

     He'd already had four of them: Angie, Claire, Jane and Sonya. He could have had Trish too, but he never did coordinators. They were inclined to be vengeful and more intelligent than their clients. If he got Sharon in the sack tonight, he wouldn't have to come back next week. He glanced at her. She blushed. He looked around the room. Angie simpered, Claire grinned, Jane looked down, and Sonya refused to catch his eye. A good haul. Of course, they were oblivious to their collective nature, each thought herself the only recipient of his attentions - these women didn't boast about . He could never have got away with it if they did.

     Sometimes, when he looked at women, he saw them composed of food. Claire, the fast food queen, with vanilla milkshake flesh-tones, and hair the stringy, bleached texture of reconstituted French fries. Jane: cocoa-colored skin and candy pink lips. Sonya - a dairy maid with dimpled hands like cheese fingers, and acres of creamy curves.

     He timed his exit so Sharon was shoulder to shoulder with him. More accurately, her shoulder - mottled but solid, like prime beef sausage - brushed his elbow. She was nearly as wide as she was tall, and her blonde moustache showed how inefficient facial bleach could be. Matthew wished she waxed. Smooth skin was much easier to trane in his imagination, especially with his eyes closed.

     'May I offer you a lift home?' He spoke gently, both to avoid startling her if she was skittish, and to ensure the other women didn't overhear.

     Tonight Sharon would be his J-Lo. He hoped she wasn't a grunter. It was hard to imagine Jennifer's sultry tones and lavish love-gifts of Rolex and iMac, if the woman beneath him was honking and squealing. He hoped she wasn't a either. He hated the tedium of it, and deflowering was always followed by much emotional guff. He began to hum under his breath, 'I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, I should be so lucky in love.' Sharon giggled.