Chapter 1

Sharing a rental home through the university was the only way I could afford to attend university, thanks to the ridiculous economy and its many ups and downs. It was much more secure for the three of us to share the burden of rent and utilities.

At first I was unsure about how we would get along as we were basically strangers at first, only through setting some initial ground rules did we soon fall into a routine and get along. While we each were on different courses thankfully there wasn't much butting of heads.

Paul, the oldest of us by one year, was the obvious athlete with visible musculature and was studying to be a fitness coach.

Gary was older than me as well by a couple of months and wasn't skinny, nor as big as Paul. He was studying numbers and hoping to be an accountant.

Me, I was the youngest and smallest of us. I was studying electronics and programming as I planned to be a computer technician.

The first month went well as we mostly concentrated on our coursework and many detailed lessons. It was a week into the second month together that things took a turn when Paul had been injured by a faulty weight machine and was stuck in his bed most of the time with only us to rely on for help.

The first few days weren't bad as his coursework was delivered and he worked on it, but that soon changed as he lost his motivation for it and became a bit of a bully with many food demands as a result of his metabolism being high from working out so much before.

By the second week both me and Gary were sick of it, so we set some terms with Paul or we would leave him to his own devices. A little apologetic he agreed.

The terms were as followed:
No interfering with each other's schedule. Studying comes first.
Me and Gary weren't cooks as he should know by now but we're willing to pass on deliveries if Paul placed them.
Paul would owe for the help once he finished healing

Thanks to the agreement we got along better and while Paul placed many orders for delivery it wasn't too much to handle.

Toward the end of our third month as housemates Paul was better and back attending classes. Nearly at the same time though me and Gary noticed a change in his mood and fearing a return to his bullying personality dragged the story out of him over a couple of beers that weekend.

Paul had apparently gained several pounds due to his injury and was having difficulty getting back into his work out routine. His diet and lack of movement over the weeks hadn't helped.

In order to help and hopefully motivate him, Gary and I agreed to follow the same diet and routine as he did. Our thinking was it would help the both of us to bulk up a bit as it couldn't hurt us with finding girlfriend's.

That first day we ate a healthy oatmeal and fruit breakfast before heading out for an early run for about an hour. Thanks to our different body situations it was actually easy for us to keep pace with each other. We followed up by meeting for lunch and sharing having the same tuna sandwiches and side salad along with yogurt and fruit. After a dinner of pasta we went to the gym and spent about an hour doing a circuit of the machines.

Paul was very obvious in avoiding a particular machine and when we asked him he nodded and said yes he had injured himself on a similar one.

The second day of following the same routine was similar to the first with some small differences in our meals. This routine continued for 3 weeks but Paul wasn't happy with his changes and wanted to go further by taking some over the counter medication. A little reluctant but thinking it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, the three of us continued our shared routine with a little bit of pharmaceutical help.

We all grew in strength and conditioning and managed to maintain our scores in our classes such that we became quite popular with the girls in our classes.

Paul was dating a different girl often and we could tell each was very athletic. They would leave early in the morning looking satisfied and then Paul would come out with a shit eating grin on his face and ask if we were jealous.

Gary managed to date the same girl all the way through to the beginning of our second year where she ended up leaving him for another guy. He was devastated by it of course as she was a beauty but we helped him forget with several nights of drinking.

I had a couple of dates and slept with a couple of girls I met at the local bar but had nothing long term as I simply wasn't looking for it.

Just before Halloween of our second year we each realized that we were having a problem down there in some shrinkage, when we confronted Paul who was supposed to be the most health conscious of the three of us he shrugged it off as nothing.

On Halloween night I met a girl and took her to a room in the house of the party, only to find a lack of reaction from myself when she touched me. Making the excuse that it was probably due to much alcohol I excused myself and headed home.

On seeing Paul back early and without a date I knew immediately he had encountered something similar and began to question him about it. He denied knowing what the issue was and said it was bad luck or something like that.

A month later and I couldn't deny it anymore. I was smaller down there and so I made a doctor's appointment. He took some blood, checked my overall health and told me he would get back to me. It took 20 days for him to call me back in and the first question was if I used any medicine to help me bulk up. I nodded and he followed up by saying that it was the likely cause of my problem.

Apparently having used such a medicine for so long had built up a tolerance within my body and as such it began to fight back by producing more chemicals to offset the medicine. This had resulted in a hormone imbalance which would be difficult to treat.

On getting back to the house I confronted Paul about the problem, at first he wanted to deny it but after contemplating by himself for a minute he told me what he had realized. There was a warning with the medicine about this happening but it was supposed to be a very rare occurrence and only to those who overdosed.

When we talked to Gary later he said it was possible he was the same but he hadn't been paying attention since his break up. A quick trip to the bathroom and he came back nodding. We also checked the medicine and it was just as Paul had said. We couldn't believe what were the odds of this happening to all three of us.

As recommended by my doctor we all stopped taking the medicine and for a month increased our work out to compensate but I found and so did the other two more shrinkage. Seeing no other option I returned to my doctor and after more tests and another wait of 20 days he got back to me.

He was happy to say that the medicine was gone from my system but the hormonal imbalance was still there. He said if the balance was still the same in two months he would arrange a prescription but he feared that it would aggravate the situation so he hoped the issue would solve itself.

When I informed my doctor that my friends were in similar situations he agreed to test them and like me he had the same opinion.

Two months after my visit to the doctor, I could tell it wasn't going in the direction I hoped for me or the other two. First was the rather obvious lack of muscle mass, second was the further shrinkage, thirdly each of us were much more emotional and it wasn't helped by the fact we had all become a little pudgy.