Ankle Biters

The horrid thing about giving birth was that the world expected her body to retreat into a certain round softness. Fran ripped the pins out of her hair and tossed the long strands aside, then hiked up her skirt and went down on all fours in the grass behind her garden shed. She did ten push ups, quick. Her first baby was only six months old but Fran wanted to shed her alien layered slabs of fat. She jumped up and studied herself in the shed's window. She saw no difference. All she had to show for her exercise were two bites on her ankles from the little black ants that managed to crawl unnoticed up her bare feet.

There's nothing sexier than a woman's ankles. And a red-checked skirt haphazard in folds, and dark brown hair flipped over one eye. Fran in the sunlight posing in front of the shed window - unaware that Oliver was inside the shed searching for his old favorite hammer to fix the creaky stair - was to Oliver tastier than moon pie and cold milk.

Later that evening they made baby number two.