Inner Beauty Ellen eyed the wetsuit with loathing. It hung on the towel rack, pretending to be as harmless as a deflated balloon. Ellen knew better. In a sudden fit of masochism, she stripped to her underwear and lunged at the suit. They wrestled. She pulled and tugged at the neoprene. It pulled and tugged back. Her body wriggled and twitched in a dance mix of Watusi and epileptic seizure. This is like trying to cram a sausage into a Coke bottle, she thought, shoe-horning thigh flab into place. Finally, with breasts squished into lopsided pancakes, a nearly dislocated shoulder, and panting like a St. Bernard in a sauna, she triumphed. The wetsuit was on. She sat down on the toilet lid to catch her breath, gagging at the odor of moldy seaweed and other people’s feet and farts. Now for the real challenge. The terrors of the deep awaiting Ellen on her first ocean dive Saturday were nothing compared to the terrors awaiting on the back of the bathroom door. She stood up and surveyed her body in the full-length mirror. Every lump, every cellulite roll was enhanced, magnified into elephantine proportions by the neoprene. She bulged in places normally hidden by even her tightest pair of jeans. Good gawd on toast, this is going to haunt me forever. |