Moved so fast. (1/1)

Idly she flicked up the laptop screen, wondering if he'd emailed her. It didn't look like it. But he had installed a new desktop image. Sweet boy. It was of marble or perhaps ice. Something blue-white and chilly anyway. The draperies of a Greek statue? Wind-sculpted snow in the Arctic? She shivered, peered closer. She saw a blue hollow like ... a navel? Diagonal lavender shadows were folds of white fabric drawn across a body. It was a close-up of the disgusting female she'd seen in the earlier e-mail. It must have contained a virus that had invaded her machine. How ghastly.     She slammed the laptop shut. Suddenly she didn't feel hungry. She'd make up a few treatment packs to post out and then have some salad - she didn't want to get too thin. She was in control of her food, of course, it didn't control her anymore. No, she'd learned that lesson. It was understandable that she'd lost her appetite when she saw that grotesque monster, that hideous creature, on her computer screen. Involuntarily her eyes turned to the closed laptop and she shivered again. First work - then lunch. She was managing her diet, she would eat; she wasn't making excuses to skip a meal. She didn't do that anymore.*Matthew felt fat. Gravity pulled his six course meal down, and his heart with it. He was soundly, roundly, utterly, depressed. He sat in the car for a while, trying to summon the energy to drive. Big lunches always did this, drained his vitality and left him prostrate with melancholy. Eventually he turned the key, wishing Liz would hurry up and think of another way to make money.*Liz looked at the neat pile of padded brown envelopes - discreet and lucrative. She wondered how much longer Matt could play his role. One of the women hadn't followed up on her last test kit by placing a new order ... odd. Liz flicked through the address labels, unwilling to open the laptop and look at the spreadsheet of names there. It was Cynthia Edwards, first course completed two weeks ago, kit used and returned to the PO Box that Liz maintained for just this purpose. Liz had sent out the standard letter, saying Miss Edwards wasn't yet clear of disease but a new treatment would probably 'resolve the situation'. No reply. Which one was Edwards? Oh yes, the Grantham Gargantua. Probably the biggest woman Liz had ever seen. The chair had creaked and groaned under her weight like a foundering ship. Rich too. It would be a shame if she didn't pay for a new course of treatment. Something else about the Edwards woman nagged at her mind. Manacles. That was it. When Matt got to the huge woman's huge house he'd found a pair of handcuffs hanging over the front door. He'd wondered what he was getting into - but it turned out handcuffs were the woman's logo, meant to show how businesses were manacled to the big software companies. Edwards had described herself to Matt as the key that unlocked the cuffs of business. She'd said she hated the way people were tricked into paying for things they didn't need and couldn't use, just because technology moved so fast.