chapter 1

Rachael Stevens was angry. Angry at her agent, angry at her self and angry at the press. The initial rush of attention from her appearing in strictly ballroom had finally fizzled out. A year ago she had been on television weekly and she had made plenty of money simply from being a celebrity. Over the past few months though, Tv shows had started rejecting her. Less and less people were calling and she was yet again slipping into obscurity. "This is fucking ridiculous! I've won sexiest woman in FHM magazine loads of times and they won't even give me an interview!" She was sat on her sofa with her boyfriend and her agent. "We'll figure something out, we always do", explained her agent reassuringly. "we just need a new angle". "Like what?" She asked.

Over the past month she had volunteered for every reality tv show going and she had been refused for all of them. She had even contacted FHM and offered to do a shoot for a reduced fee and they had been flaky and never got back to her, despite her efforts. The attention was drying up, and she hated it. "Every fucking nobody is on TV at the moment and I'm not getting a look in". Her agent tried to apologize, tried to explain that they had exhausted every possible avenue but she wouldn't have it. Her boyfriend Andrew watched all of this, appalled that she thought it was okay to treat somebody so horribly and with so little respect. He had come to realize these past few months also that his girlfriend wasn't a very nice person. At first he had really liked her, maybe even loved her, but slowly he had begun to realize, her first love was celebrity, a fact he now resented. She simply didn't have the emotional depth to see past being in the spotlight, any spotlight. She was addicted to fame and it sickened him. Watching her berate and belittle her agent so callously got him thinking. "What wouldn't she do to get back into the spotlight?" He could see she was desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.

He sat there for several more minutes watching her tirade whilst trying to think of the most demeaning tricks he could convince her do to win the public eye again. He probably wouldn't have thought of anything had he not noticed the awful girl's magazine lying on the sofa. She always insisted on buying what ever shit they sold on any celebrity and it did nothing except fuel her jealousy and determination to be famous again. It was a specific article on the cover however, that caught his eye. It was an article about celebrity weight loss and showed a selection of pop stars/ actresses who had lost weight over the summer and were sporting their new, slim line selves in assorted bikini's. "people go nuts for weight loss stories, he thought". He looked at her perfect body. She sat with her legs on the sofa wearing blue jeans and a simple, green strappy top. She was slim yet curvy with shapely legs, wide hips and a pert, full breasts. She was stunning and in no need of a diet. He knew she worked hard to keep her wash board stomach, toned thighs and he knew she struggled a continuous battle to keep her weight in check. It led him to ponder, what desire was stronger, her desire to be fit and healthy or her desire to be famous? He had to find out.

He thought he would wait for a pause in the conversation but he soon realized there was no shutting her up once she got going so he blurted out load, cutting her off mid expletive, "You could always get fat?!" there were a few seconds of silence as if he had broken her completely. She looked at him puzzled, half from the fact she had forgotten he was there, half from the alien sentence he had just uttered. "what?" she said, not really comprehending what he was saying in any way at all. "you know," he stammered, "for the...publicity?" Her agents face had instantly changed and Andy could see it light up with ideas. "What the fuck do you mean put on weight?! I work hard to keep this body perfect! What fucking use would that be??!!" Andrew Could see that her rage had now found a new target, and rather than take in what he'd said, she was just going to vent her frustration on him. And she would have, if her agent hadn't joined in. "that's perfect!" He said jumping up, clearly elated. "it was staring us in the face and we couldn't even see it, Andy you're a genius!" Rachael's face had changed from angry to a unhappy confusion. "what do you mean, how is anything about what Andy just said genius?"

Larry, her agent, had just about reached the end of his tether with Rachael. She was rude, selfish and had basically ruined every chance he had got her to get back into the limelight with her bad attitude. He would have quit had he not needed the money to pay his mounting debts. So he had suffered this treatment for months dutifully, hating her more and more. He genuinely thought he was going to be fired after the latest and most scorching attack on his abilities but now he could see a ray of light. "Think about it!" "it's the perfect opportunity and guarantees you get right back into the limelight!" Rachael's attention was finally piqued at his words as the opportunity of guaranteed fame was to good to ignore. "what do you mean?" She asked. "you want to get famous again right? You want to the public to be obsessed with you all over again? people wondering every day what you're up to and clamoring for news about you?" "yes of course I do!", she said. "well let me paint this picture for you. You've always been the perfect pop princess, with the perfect body. I mean you look great, you always have.....that's the problem."

"what do you mean?" Rachael was genuinely interested now. Her agent had seemed hopelessly lost for months and she had never seen him so passionate about an idea which excited her. "you're too perfect, you're unattainable. You're like a unicorn, a thing of fantasy. Guys fall to their feet for you, they love you and always will. But women, women feel alienated by you. You're this image of perfection that they feel compared against and simply can't relate to. To them you're just an image. An ideal. I want to make you real, bring you down to earth. Show them that you're human too, that you're not perfect, that you're one of them. You see women love to see the real side of people. They're not interested in perfection and everything being great. They want to see messy lives and the weaknesses they see in themselves reflected in you." "And how would me being fat achieve that?" She was really bewildered by what he was saying and still half thought it was a joke. "You want to get famous again? get fat". "you can't be serious?" She said. She could see both of them looking at her far too happily, as if they had suddenly discovered buried treasure.
She had worked hard to keep her body trim and toned and the thought of ruining it on purpose seemed like an impossibility.

"oh I'm quite serious" Larry said. "people don't want to read about your perfect life anymore because frankly its boring. They want drama and gossip. You disappear from the public eye for a few months, maybe even a year or two. Come back fat, chubbed up...with a weight problem. People will go wild for you. It doesn't matter what you excuse is. Sad, depressed whatever, every paper in England is going to want to interview you and find out why. You'll be the hot topic in every magazine simply from piling on some poundage. And the best bit is, that's just the beginning. Women will finally be able to relate to you, they'll love you. And once you drop the weight you can sell your story of how you did it! You could make a fitness DVD, book, tv appearances, you name it. They'll book you for years to come because you'll finally be more than just an image, they'll see you as a real woman. a real celebrity"

Rachael was taken aback. It was genuinely a great idea. She couldn't see a flaw in it. There's was no way she wouldn't get famous again after going through that and showing her human side. She was getting excited just thinking about people wanting to know all about her and clamoring after her. She was also taken aback at the thought of letting her beautiful body become fat and flabby. She had never been in any way overweight and could only imagine what it would be like. It scared her because she knew she had no choice but to go along with Larry's idea if she wanted to be famous again and she did. Fame lay at the end of his scheme as did a radically changed her. "I can't believe I'm even considering this, but I think you're right." "Of course I'm right!" Larry said, "And it's the easiest thing in the world for you to do! All you have to do is lie back and relax. Eat a lot more obviously and no more exercise but in effect it's the easiest fame gamble. You can't lose. You literally need to do nothing except live a life of relaxation and eat lots of good food. You're gonna eat your self famous!"

"how much weight are we talking about?" She quizzed, hoping secretly it would be a low meager amount of weight. Andrew joined in with the answer, curious to see how much she was truly willing to sacrifice. "oh a good few stone I should imagine! The more the better" "no(she protested) not loads of weight?" "If you gain a little bit of weight, no one will really notice. you could gain a stone and a half and still be a few stone lighter than the average woman",Larry mused. "No, for this, there's got to be a dramatic difference I'm afraid or people might not buy it." "You need to look like you've really let yourself go, it'll make your story all the more incredible when you've lost the weight and sold your tale of how you've done it". If you gain enough weight and then lose it, you could even become the face of a weight loss company and get sponsored. It'd guarantee a permanent residence in the public eye".