chapter 2

No doubt about it, Marietta Vecchio was THE hit of her friend's weddig. Amazinglly, no one noticed that she was magically three times her former size. All the men lusted after her lush and lavish figure and the women were simply mesmerized by her stunning dress. Every woman at the reception cornered Marietta, insisting that the HAD to know where she got such a magnificent dress and every time she was asked, all Marietta would do is smile enigmatically, saying that it was HER little secret. That is until Candi Azaria approached her.

Make no mistake, Candi and Marietta had never been friends. And why should they be? There was little, insignificant Marietta, a skinny, tiny biddy everyone ignored, and then there was Candi! Candi was tall and statuesque with a face and figure that would be at home on magazine covers. In the five years they had worked together, the sum total of their conversations might have amounted to a short paragraph. But as Candi slinked up to Marietta, bound and determined to find out where she had gotten that dress, Marietta's once tight lips began to loosen. Candi hemmed and hawed trying to turn the conversation to the dress when suddenly Marietta coyly whispered in Candi's ear, "By the way, I got this dress at the Hippodrome over on Western Avenue.".

Needless to say, very early on Monday morning there was Candi, pacing up and down the block where The Hippodrome was located, waiting for the store to open. She waited somewhat impatiently for fifteen minutes and was about to turn her heels and leave when a hand put a sign in the door of the window what said, "OPEN"!

Candi stepped into the store and looked around, only to discover that there was no merchandise on display ANYWHERE! Again she was about to turn tail and walk out of the store when a sales clerk entered from the back room and said, "How can I help you?".

Candi casually mentioned that a "friend" of hers had bought a dress here that she admired and wondered if she might find something here that might look good on ME.

The clerk replied that it was possible that there MIGHT be something appropriate for a woman like you. "Just what did you want the dress for?".

Candi admitted that she didn't have anything specific in mind, but she did mention that she thought the dress Marietta had worn to the wedding had a certain magical quality to it and that she'd like to have a dress that had the same kind of magic.

The clerk looked Candi up and down, thought long and hard, and then said, "I think I can find something in stock that will make you stand out in a crowd, if THAT'S kind of what you're looking for!".

Well that was exactly what Candi was looking for. She was the type of girl who desperately wanted to draw all the attention in a room to HER. After rummaging in the back room for fifteen or twenty minutes, the clerk came back with a box, opened the box and showed Candi a pair of leotards.

Candi was indignant, to say the least. What an insult Here Marietta had gotten this stunning creation that made all the men in the room fawn all over her, and all this idiot clerk could find for HER was a ratty looking gym suit?

The clerk could sense Candi's hostility. Who could miss it? Then she said that Candi should try it on and see what she thought. Well, Candi was about the leave the store in a huff when she took one last,long look at the leotard. Suddenly, there was SOMETHING about it that captivated her. She literally couldn't take her eyes off it. The clerk drew back the drapes to the back room and indicated Candi should try it on there. Which she did.

The leotard was extremely tight, even for a girl with a near perfect figure. Candi eyed herself in the mirror in the back room and wasn't at all satisfied. The color was a drab grey. The fit was so tight that whatever milimeters of flabby fat she had simply oozed out the sides. The seams of the tiny garment virtually screamed as they strained against the pressure Candi's body was exerting on them.

Just as Candi was about to storm out of the dressing room, a strange thing started to happen. Unexpectedly, the leotards began to stretch and grow, becoming quite loose on Candi. Candi, of course, was relieved that the leotards were starting to fit better. She also began to notice that the leotards had gone from a dingy gray to something resembling a leopard skin. Hmmmm, she said to herself, now THIS has possibilities. She stared into the mirror, absolutely hypnotized at the transformation taking place with the leotards. However, just as with Marietta, she didn't notice the changes that were taking place with her body.

While the leotards were growing, she was shrinking, at least she was getting shorter. She went from a statuesque five feet ten inches to a full foot shorter. Alas, in the transformation, she didn't lose any of her one hundred and forty pounds, making her look stocky at best. Candi, of course, was blithely oblivious to what was happening to her.

While she was getting "fatter", she wasn't getting flabby at all. In fact, she was adding muscle mass like you wouldn't believe. Her calves became rock hard and twice their former size. Her thighs were more like ribbons of steel, rippling with new found muscle. At first her belly bulged out, acquiring a huge layer of fat, but then the fat turned into muscle. If top rank weight lifters had a six pack, Candi now had a twelve pack. By contrast, her once large and sultry breasts lost all semblance of fat as layer upon layer of muscle grew making her pectorals rock hard and massive. Her once long and graceful neck shortened considerably, to the point it was hard to tell where her shoulders ended and her head began. Finally, her long blond hair darkened to a mousy brown and shortened to the point that she looked as if she had gotten a military style hair cut.

So there she was, leopard style leotards and all, just under five feet tall but weighing in at a stupendous 337 pounds of bulging, massive muscles. As Candi gazed into the mirror she didn't see a muscle-bound woman who resembled a fire plug, she was a woman who would generate attention no matter where she went. She was more than happy, she was ecstatic.

She went right up to the sales clerk who was waiting by the cash register. Candi asked about the cost of the leotards and the clerk said, "Don't worry about it honey, it's on the house!"

And thus Candi Azaria too had come under the spell of the Hippodrome. Who would be next?