chapter 5

Watching Josh bursting out of his clothes became a regular weekly feature at the club.
There were other cabaret acts too, many of them went above and beyond what would be allowable in any club open to the public.
There were strippers of both sexes and something in between. There were pole dancers and lap dancers. Sometimes the drinks were served topless. Customers could pay whatever they liked to the staff to get them to do whatever they liked in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Sometimes they would stand by and watch. Sometimes they would get involved themselves.
The staff were treated as sexual puppets they had to do what they were told. They got paid handsomely, but Josh was not the only one with a band on their leg.
On another night, Josh would be brought out dressed in a suit, but one not so tight a previously described. All day, he'd been deprived of his shake and any other nourishment. Even water was rationed.
By the time he was brought out in front of an audience, he would be in a temper, hungry and shakey.
They started bringing him shakes and plates of food. He always grabbed the shake first. He would literally pour a whole litre down his throat, unconcerned about any mess that he was making.
He might start on the solid food while he waited for his next shake to be delivered. Deep fried pizza in batter went down in a matter of minutes. Prawns in batter, deep fried, then deep fried in a second layer of batter and dripping in grease were another favourite, especially when dipped in a sauce of some kind. Much of the sauce dripped down his front rather than in his mouth.
Battered mars bars deep fried was another great dish, served with lashings of sweetened cream.
He ate whatever was brought to him... he had to... or he would feel Fanta's wrath in his ankle.
Watching him fatten up was a shameful pleasure for club members. They felt sorry for him being so fat and all, but they were astounded at his gluttony.
When he burst out of too tight clothing, they were disgusted that someone could get themselves in such a state, but they were curious to how fat he actually was. If they had seen him before, they wanted to know how much bigger he was now. Her was a hideous curiosity to them. They could not bear to watch, but could not tear themselves away.

In private, Josh tended to stick to his shakes. No matter how much solid food he had, it did not satisfy his cravings as much as his shakes.
His shakes were now a lethal cocktail, every ingredient had a purpose.
There was so much fat in it that if a glass of the stuff was left to stand in a cool place, it would form a thick two inch crust of greasy fat. Underneath the fatty crust was a greasy oily layer then there was a substance that was far too sweet for most people to tolerate for long.
Before serving, Josh's shakes had to be gently heated to allow all the fat to melt. Then they had to be put in an ice cream churner to chill, so that the fat stayed as an emulsion in the shake rather than solidify.
There were vitamins in there, and minerals, but not in as much volume as other ingredients.
Then there were the drug like elements. There were several appetite stimulants, weight gain enhancers. They were several types of each. Each one worked in a slightly different way so that all bases were covered and he could gain as much weight as possible as quickly as possible. There were drugs to slow his metabolism down. These made him physically slower, it took his body longer to process everything and they made his brain work slower too. They made him so forgetful that, if he was asked a question, he would forget what he was being asked halfway though his reply. They made him appear slow and dim-witted.
If he was not sleeping, he was drinking his shake, or on display in the club. The telly did not appeal to him. He did not understand most of it.

He was a giant, gluttonous zombie.