I hear the cat squall as I am sorting the silverware, and I watch itÕs leap instead of your body coming towards me. I am thinking of the cat and of the shock of going from lap to floorboards as I hear the silverware you washed clatter to the tile, as you take me by the arm and pull me into the living room, where the voice of a television newscaster swells with the remote in your other hand. Do you see? Do you see what youÕve been doing? Do you hear what this will do to you? You look from my face to the flat one on the screen and press the volume again and again. Do you see now? Your body is behind me, pointing me at the television by my shoulders. You do not shake me. Your body is shaking. It softens and clings as your hand tosses the remote onto the table and you press your face into me. DonÕt you understand? Your hands are at my waist, rubbing circles over my navel and ribs under the nightgown. YouÕre so beautiful, I donÕt understand. I donÕt understand why you want to do these things. The broadcast has cut to a display of printed warnings and pictures of the pill bottles and company logo. If you or someone you know has been prescribed these drugs for weight loss or maintainance, you read to me, DISCONTINUE USE IMMEDIATELY and consult your doctor. The cat is yowling again. It wants itÕs litterbox cleaned, I say. Discontinue use. IÕm cleaning out the litterbox I say and untangle you. Do you understand now? Will you listen to me? The commercial has begun on the same volume and your voice is drowned by a group of women clamoring for fat-free brownies. As you reach for the remote I slip from you and hear your body meet the couch as the television quiets. The door to the bathroom is open as I rattle the litter box with my foot and twist the childproof caps off my bottles. I take three doses as you continue to reprimand me. Will you throw them away now? YouÕve lost too much weight as it is. Soon dear weÕll talk about it in the morning, I say as I hide tomorrowÕs tablets in the extra soapdish and come back out to you. You have changed the channel and are watching a business report as I lay my cheek on your shoulder and take your hand in both of mine. Your ring has tightened and the skin bulges out on either side of it. I twist my palm so that you will not feel the bit of string which holds mine in place or the cut on my palm from reaching into the drain to find it when the band slipped over my knuckles in the sink. You pet my hand without watching and knit your brows at the screen. I donÕt understand why you continue to take them. LetÕs go to bed, I tell you.

I take them because I like to cook and not feel hungry. I take them because then I do not need to sleep and I can get things done. I take them because they deaden the smell of your cat and your leather coats and your sandwiches. I take them because I like to lie awake and listen to you breathe.

An hour before the alarm I go downstairs and call in my prescription at three drugstores. 5 refills before 1/31, the sticker reads, Take as needed with plenty of water. A number follows. I am polite and direct on the phone. I come back to bed before your eyes flutter and you reach for me.

I take them because of the way your head skips up off my chest when you feel my heart palpitate. I take them because you move your face to my shoulder now, even in your sleep.

The alarm is set so that we will have time to try again before you leave for the office. I press the snooze button again and again as you press against me and I know that there are no rolls on my body. I remember how you used to fondle and toy with them and how fond you were and I contract the muscles below my ribs and feel my bones poke into you. Your muscles hold sleep and you let me crawl over and on top of your body and I can see the tower of the church through our window and hear the morning chimes. I calculate how many minutes your eyes close in the night while mine are open. I dig my hands into the flesh at your mid-section and catch the hair of your chest in my nails.

I take them because womenÕs bodies age so much faster. I take them because I do not want you to leave. I take them because I want to have advantage if you do.

Downstairs I separate the egg whites to use in pancakes and mix them in a bowl with skim milk while you cook sausages and scramble the yolks with pepper. The grease crackles from the pan and I begin to sweat under my robe. I cannot smell the sausage and I would not taste it if it was in my mouth, I remind myself, as I scoop chocolate into your coffee. The cat is hungry as well and I pour its pebbles as much on the floor as in its bowl and it is still yowling underfoot. You want me to pick it up and coddle it and feed it nicely and this is in your face as you turn from me and it makes me want to drop the cat into your food. Or perhaps you do not even notice or hear it anymore, since it is growing fat off of what my body feeds it now instead of yours. It keeps its loyalties however, it does not care which hands pour.

I take them because when I am thin I enjoy the feel of my skin more than you do and I need you less.

Your hands are tracing the shape of my sides with air between the two of us. I feel the terrycloth thickness of my bathrobe and I suck in my skin under the fabric, knowing you will not touch the bones. I look at the grease seeping from around the sausages and I want to bathe. You look as though you want to make love again and I twist away and into the bathroom as you fill your plate.

I take them because when my hands trip over my ribs and slip between them it is more erotic than any caress you have given me.

There are three pills in the soapdish and I swallow them slowly, one by one, with the door open and your back turned eight feet away. I taste the powder as it rises back in my throat and I smile and you ask me what I am laughing at. I know it is too soon for them to start to work but my heartbeat is rising already and my head has begun to ring. I slip a hand inside my bathrobe and my skin is dry but my fingers dig between each rib and its neighbor and I press hard enough to leave marks which will have only just faded by the time you touch me again.

I take them because every day my fingers slip in a little further and this makes me even higher than the pills.

I feel the impressions of my hands on my skin as you wrap your arms around from behind me and sway with smiles on your gums. You look at my body over my shoulder and your hands shape a heavy dome low on my midsection. I think this morning maybe. I think soon. I think weÕll be a family, donÕt you? Your voice echoes the purring of your cat around my ankles and I kick him sharply away while you nuzzle my curve of my neck and avoid my collarbone and angular jaw.

I take them because you once told me that you would leave me if I took them, thinking that would stop me, and because later and last night you told me that you would never leave me, and because I have always thought that was a lie and careless in the way parents promise lies to quiet their children.

You carry our plates to the coffee table in front of the television which is spouting morning news as cheerfully as possible before everyone starts their day. There are no new developments in the missing child report in Florida. The two year old was carried off by a ten foot alligator while wading but the family still continues to hope for the best. My hand bleeds into the rind of the cantelope I have been slicing and I am carefully to throw away all the drops before I join you. The screen is flashing an old picture of the missing boy, grinning toothless in a blow up baby pool in front of his trailer, splashing foam bath toys in the shapes of enlongated fish with missing eyes. You are slopping sausage slices mixed with eggs onto your fork and looking at notes from your briefcase. I can see bits of pepper and skin caught in your teeth as you flash quick, distracted smiles at me over your coffee with three creams and one sugar. A commercial for orange juice comes on and there is a close up of a small girl in too much mascara sipping from a straw and a voice-over about the consequences of Vitamin-C deficiencies. I have dissolved another tablet into my coffee and I sip it slowly and pretend to be interested in the furniture ads you have left on the table.

I take them because when you mention children I think of my body expanding- not to the front but to the sides- and I think of the deception of bodies, of how mine compensates for its barreness with round childbearing hips.

I take them because your look at these hips with more affection and anticipation than you do my face or hands.

I take them because these hips are only accentuated by my thinness,so that the bones reach out far enough for you wrap your palms around them and speak of names and futures.

I take them because I have not had a period in three months and the pregnancy tests still read negative.

You finish breakfast briskly and run a hand through my hair as you pass me to shower upstairs. I take a sip of coffee with ever step of yours I hear on the stair and I listen for the drop of your robe to the tile floor and the fall of the water. I stack your syrup sticky plates under my untouched ones and carry the mugs and napkins back to the kitchen. Upstairs, you are rinsing the suds out of your hair and reaching for the soap to your left. You are opening your mouth and closing your eyes to the water.

I take them because the first time you got me pregnant I was nineteen and I stopped watering my plants until it bled its way back out of my body, well before my middle had begun to swell.

I take them because the second time we wanted one and I bled again.

I take them because I hate for the blood of my body to surprise me.

You have stopped the shower now and will be standing in front of the mirror, shaving, naked, with your body pressed against the sink. You will nick yourself on the same spot as yesterday and reopen the cut that was hidden beneath your shaving cream. You will come downstairs with a small dot of blood where you have blotted and forgotten it on your cheek. You will put on the shirt I have hung for you and the socks at the top of the drawer. I put each dish into the washer and I wrap the food I have not eaten in napkins, place them in the trash and close the lid tightly. I pour the extra coffee into your thermos and place it next to the door.

I take them because I realize exactly how much I would be affected if you left me, and how much I have wanted to leave you for making me feel this way.

You come downstairs, dressed, and as you gather your papers you ask me what I will do today. I answer truthfully under my breath so that the words come out jumbled even to myself. You nod that that must be nice and that you will be quite busy today so I should please refrain from calling you or your secretary until after two oÕclock in the afternoon. You say that we really should think about organizing and straightening this room a bit more, shouldnÕt we.

I take them because they dehydrate my mouth and throat and coat them so that every breath tastes like powder and every minute I know that they are working in me and I am in control.

I straighten your tie which does not need straightening and I wipe the spot of blood from your face. I hand you the thermos of coffee and smile for you. And do think about what we discussed last night dear, you say as I smooth your jacket. I donÕt want to hear any more about you taking those pills. TheyÕre dangerous. You understand now? You take my chin in your hand and tilt my eyes up to you. I smile and you kiss me gently on my forehead and tell me to be productive while you are gone and that you shouldnÕt be home late. The door makes a sharp noise as you close it and I twist the lock behind.

I take them because you never once have asked me why.