Once there was a man named Herbert whose one dream was to be married to an attractive woman. Not the kind that would just pass... Herbert wanted, as his life long companion and eternal soul mate, a knock out, a goddess, an enchanting Venus who broke hearts and stopped traffic on every street she crossed.

His one problem was that he was not all that much to look at himself. His height was 5' 6" and he weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds, after dinner, in his sneakers. He was naturally timid and was never all that successful with girls, certainly not any that resembled, in the least, the visions that danced in his dreams. So in the end he swallowed his pride and, when the opportunity presented itself, he was wed to Bertha.

Bertha was his opposite in appearance and temperament. She was two inches taller than him and she weighed almost exactly one hundred pounds more. And she was loud, pushy, and demanding, not one to quietly submit to fate's fickle vagaries, or to the capricious whims of fortune. Herbert was able to bear her only because of the tentative amelioration he drew from a grand, subtle ambition.

He would reform her! Her face, under the fat, was pretty. He would actualize that latent potential. He would make of her what he would, he would mold her, with or without her cooperation, into the sleek, shapely form he watched each night, modeling on the inside of his eyelids. It would not be easy, he knew. Bertha was tough, and stubborn, and set in her gastronomic ways. But Herbert had patience, wiles, and subtlety, and he applied them all, doing daily battle against his wife's enormous appetite.

Eventually, after months of hints, half joking comments, and subliminal midnight whispers, she came around. As a gesture symbolizing her love, as a token of the affection and fidelity she felt toward her mate, Bertha made the supreme sacrifice and went on a diet.

It wasn't easy, but she stuck to it. Their refrigerator remained well stocked for, after all, Herbert still had to eat, and, as he said, it's impossible to learn to resist temptation if to temptation one is never exposed. So every evening became a terrible battle for her, against the seductive charms of roast beef or the heavenly fragrance of fried potatoes and breast of chicken in gravy. She made due with celery and bean curd.

And it worked. After one week of semi-fasting she stepped onto a scale and was amazed to see the dial, after a few seconds of frantic shaking, slowly settle down on the unbelievably low number of two hundred and fifteen! It was the least she had weighed in years, and she was elated. She ran to tell her husband, and he was thrilled.

But, as the days passed, despite that shocking evidence of success, she began to feel seething deep within her, a burning, mounting resentment. Who was Herbert to put her through this torture? To what comparable execrations did he challenge himself? Look at him! Lying on the couch, watching football, while she, weak with hunger, struggled with the housework.

"Herbert!" she yelled. "Get off your butt and help me with the vacuuming."

"Leave me alone," he growled, "can't a man get a second of peace?"

Bertha became enraged. "Peace! Peace! I nearly starve myself and you want peace?" She threw down the nozzle of the vacuum, ran to the kitchen, and reappeared, thirty seconds later, clasping in one hand a pint of Swiss almond vanilla ice cream, and in the other a spoon. "Either get up and help me, you bastard, or I'm having a little snack!"

Herbert shot to his feet and faced her. "You wouldn't," he whispered, his voice shaking.

"Try me," she answered, twisting the spoon slowly into the smooth surface of the ice cream. "I'm feeling a bit peckish."

Herbert stared at her as she slowly, slowly raised the spoon to her lips. He saw his fantasy go up in smoke. "All right," he said, "I'll do it. It's blackmail, but I'll do it." Muttering under his breath, and avoiding her eyes, he picked up the vacuum and got to work.

That marked a turning point in their relationship, and from then on Bertha never lifted a finger around the house again. If Herbert refused to wash the windows, she'd grab a stick of pepperoni and he'd rush for a rag. If he balked at the notion of mopping the floor, there was always a pound of provolone or a bag of Doritos within easy reach.

She exalted in her power, and threw herself single mindedly into the pursuit of a better physique. She spent a fortune on exercise equipment and ordered Herbert to take out the trash. She hired a personal exercise coach, and worked out with him while Herbert scrubbed the toilet. She did sit-ups as he swept and push-ups as he dusted.

And Herbert endured it all because it was working! Her clothes began to sag on her and she spent a fortune on a new wardrobe. Then those had to be discarded and the next set in it's turn. The bills piled up, but he didn't mind.

With each pound that she shed she became a more fussy housewife. Every time she felt a pang of hunger she'd wrack her brains until she thought of some new chore. He bore his servitude gladly because his wife was becoming beautiful. He'd carefully polish the doorknob of her workout room, and listen in contentment to her agonized grunts and the encouraging cheers of her coach.

The silverware shined, the walls were spotless, and Bertha was gorgeous. Herbert was bone weary and broke, but when she walked down the street she was greeted by whistles, and when they were together in public he felt the happy heat of envious glances on his back.

One morning, after preparing her liquid breakfast and ironing her clothes for the day, he stood lingering by the bed and staring at her sleeping face. It was perfect, breathtaking. His one dream had come true and he was a happy man at last. He felt a shiver of joy, and quietly left the room and made his way to work.

When he returned home that evening the front hall seemed strangely quiet. She didn't answer when he called, and there was no trace of her in any part of the house. Up in the bedroom he was shocked to find her closet empty and the suitcase gone.

She had left him, of course, run off to San Antonio with her trainer. Herbert was crushed, but his grief was mollified, somewhat, the next day when the photographers arrived and informed him that his home was to be featured in a giant spread in the next issue of Good Housekeeping.