chapter 5

I soon forgot about Robin, his photograph and his lifestyle when I returned home and I got on with my own life.
The next time I saw him, he was at a competition. He was one of the competitors. He was supposed to be in warm up gym getting ready go on the stage. Instead, he was surrounded by scantily clad girls who were feeding him doughnuts, but still admiring his musculature.
When the time came, he performed just like anyone else, he still had his eight pack. He still had no visible fat on his body, despite his diet.
He even won the competition!
I tried to get closer to him afterwards to interview him, but he was far too busy having sex with one of his lackeys.
I asked around the competition circuit. He was no longer respected amongst his fellow competitors. It simply was not fair that they should put so much hard work in and come away with nothing, when all he had to do was turn up. He was always going to parties. He was always surrounded by girls and would often go to bed with them two at a time. He drank alcohol every day, getting drunk at least twice a week. He ate all the wrong things to excess. His gluttony had no bounds. He had even been seen taking drugs and smoking. He was hardly a good advert for good, healthy, clean living.

It was approximately a year later when Robin came to my studio for a magazine photoshoot. He was still winning competitions. People still wanted to see him on the cover.
He arrived about ten minutes late. He was hot sweaty and breathless after climbing the stairs to my attic studio. I expected clients to be a little bit breathless after climbing all those stairs, but Robin was extremely breathless. It was hardly what I should have expected from someone who spend the best of every day at the gym... but then again, Robin did not go to the gym. He did not work out. Somehow, he was maintaining his appearances, but the real Robin was hidden just beneath the surface was very unfit.
He was alone, but he insisted on having a rest before we started shooting any pictures. While he rested, his hand reached into a sticky paper bag and brought out a doughnut. He must have eaten at least three of them when I insisted we started to do some actual work.
He took off his shirt. His muscles really were something to behold. He posed as he usually did on the stage when he won competitions and I soon had a whole host of pictures to choose from.
After he had left, I was looking and sorting through the images, trying to decide which ones were the most suitable to use.
However, it came to my notice that at least half of the pictures were completely unusable. A strange ghost-like shape surrounded Robin. I printed a few of them out and managed to trace the outline. It was the outline of, what i took to be, Robin's real unadulterated figure. Even in outline, it was clear that his muscles had gone and had been replaced with a thick layer of flab. No wonder he had struggled with the stairs!
A fortnight orbs later I was invited back to Robin's house.
He still had the same muscular physique he had always had. He was still womanising, drinking and gourmandising, yet still winning Body building competitions.
There were not as many of us around the table this time, but there was just as much food.
One of Robin's female attendants filled a giant serving plate, then hand fed him mouthful after mouthful of toast and chicken liver pate. The rest of us present were content with only two small pieces. Robin must have consumed a hundred, all washed down with wine in one glass and a creamy concoction in another glass.
The next course was just as large. Again, Robin was fed by his attendants who rubbed their hands over his body and into his trousers to make the experience as sensual for him as they could.
The debauched gluttony was too much for most of the other guests who walked out. I alone remained. I was transfixed by the horrific show that he was putting on.

After several hours, the meal was over. He pushed his attendants away. He slurred his words drunkenly as he addressed me, but he still knew what he was doing.
He asked me to follow him down into the basement, just as I had a year ago. Everything appears to be the same, until the point he pulled the cover off the enlarged photograph.

My mouth dropped open. The figure in the picture was wearing the same bespoke suit as before, but it was now far too small. The shoulders were bunched up, the sleeves were strained. His fat chin and neck were too big for his collar. The tie had been discarded many pounds ago, he had loosened his collar. His chest was just as big but it had a softer appearance.
The shirt over his belly was strained, and gaped between the buttons. He had developed a large paunch that his trousers struggled to contain. As he looked at the picture, food stains appeared on the shirt and the button on his trousers gave way, forcing the zip to slide down and his paunch oozed out of the gap with the excesses of his last meal.
Free of the constraints his paunch pushed right out of the gap in a perfectly round globe.
But that was not all. His eyes were surrounded by dark circles. His skin had lost it's glow.
In the picture, Robin had lost 50lbs in muscle and gained at least 100lbs in fat.