Guillaume stroked his goatee and looked at the Polaroids and his sketches. An idea began to form in his head. He placed his largest stretched canvas on his easel and stood back, thinking.
Over the next few weeks, Jace periodically called Guillaume to see how the painting was progressing and to ask if they could swing by and take a look at it. Guillaume would always inform him that it was going well but that he never let his subjects see the painting until it was completed. He told Jace he would call when it was done.
Unlike Jace, whose parents seemed unable to cut him off from financial support, Tom's folks had stopped giving him handouts once he graduated from college. Fortunately Jace let him stay for free in a guest bedroom at the beach house, which saved him a shit-ton of money, but he still needed to cover his other living expenses. Most recently, he had landed a soul-deadening gig at a call center which bored him comatose but gave him some dignity when he was out on the town, not always having to rely on Jace to pick up the check.
In the evenings, as they were lounging around the house, Tom could swear that Jace was checking himself out in the mirror more often than usual – and Jace usually checked himself out a lot. Tom could understand why, as Jace appeared to be packing on pounds of muscle. While Tom was locked in a fluorescent-lit bunker all day, trying to persuade confused elderly people that they needed better internet service, Jace must be back here lifting weights like a maniac. What had long been a perfect swimmer’s body was growing more robust and swole, with his flat pecs becoming more shelflike and his biceps and triceps achieving impressive definition.
Finally one night, Jace was lying flat on the sofa, wearing nothing but board shorts and entertaining himself by flexing his newly grown pecs, first one, then the other.
Tom had been sticking around Jace for ages without feeling any remorse or jealousy at his friend's good looks, but he had to ask, “You started taking steroids or something?”
“What, are you nuts? I wouldn’t put that poison in my body,” Jace said as he downed a shot of tequila, then rolled off the sofa to search the coffee table for a joint he had rolled that afternoon.
Tom got up and knelt by the coffee table. “So what made you decide to bulk up?”
“I didn’t decide. It’s just happening. I’m exercising the same, I’m eating the same, I’m drinking the same” Jace laughed victoriously as he found his tightly rolled joint. “I’m smoking the same.”
“You been bitten by any radioactive spiders lately?”
“Not lately,” Jace said, the joint bouncing in his lips as he fired up his Zippo. Tom noticed with envy the perfect semicircular bulge created by Jace's biceps as he flexed to light the joint. Jace had to admit that he liked the extra pump in his arms, however it was happening.
The next night, as they powered down In-N-Out Burgers, Tom stared across the table at Jace, trying to figure out what else seemed different about him today.
When Jace noticed, he stared back. “What, I got something on my face?”
“Eyebrows. And cheekbones.”
“I always had eyebrows on my face, genius.”
“Yeah, but you used to have more,” said Tom. “Did you get your eyebrows waxed?”
“No.” Jace reached his less-greasy hand toward his forehead and felt around. He’d gotten eyebrow waxes during his days as a model and knew the feeling, and he definitely didn’t have the natural bushy feeling he preferred. “The fuck? You been sneaking into my room at night and waxing my eyebrows?”
“Why would I do that?”
“To fuck with me!”
“If I wanted to fuck with you, I could think of much more fun ways than giving you nocturnal eyebrow waxes.”
Bennett pulled out his cell phone, turned on the camera and checked how he looked. He had to admit, he did look hotter with less of a unibrow. He also noticed what Tom had meant about his cheekbones. They had always been high, being a part of his facial beauty, but they were even more pronounced. His jaw seemed better, too, and his full, red lips were somehow... different. "Must be that I don't eat as much junk food," Jace said off-handedly to Tom.
Tom didn't answer. Jace began on his fourth hamburger that day. On any other human, the amount of junk food would have fattened them up quickly. As Jace had continued working out the same way he always had, the sudden increase in food didn't explain his improving body.
By the weekend, Jace needed to go on a shopping spree, because none of his old clothes were fitting properly. Jace's t-shirts had become so tight, stretching over the hill created by his ultra-pumped pecs, that they all exposed his midriff. He appreciated the sharply etched ab muscles which had appeared recently with little to no effort on his part, but he was surprised to see that his treasure trail had fallen out. He wondered if that could be the first sign of impending baldness, but the golden, wavy hair on his head seemed as lush as ever. If anything, he could use a trim.
As usual, Tom tagged along to offer his fashion advice while Jace shopped. Tom had neither the budget nor the body to be as fashionable as Jace could, so he lived vicariously through trips like this. Since he was having to buy a whole new wardrobe, Jace followed some of Tom's more adventurous suggestions of bolder colors and wilder patterns. Jace's broader shoulders and lats had given his torso a more dramatic V shape which wreaked havoc with anything off the rack, and although his waistline had remained a trim thirty inches, his ass and thighs had put on so much muscle that he had to have everything from dress pants to board shorts altered to fit his new dimensions.
While tailors labored to make the adjustments, Jace and Tom headed to the beach to toss around the Frisbee for a while. Jace's clothing situation had grown so dire that his only old clothes that would fit were stretch bicycle shorts, straining his bulge. Tom was used to feeling inferior to Jace, but his friend’s appearance was growing so extraordinary that Tom shrouded himself in the baggiest sweats he could find, hoping the contrast wouldn’t be quite so apparent. An unusual feeling - envy - stirred. As the sun emerged from behind a cloud, Tom froze in place, letting the Frisbee sail over his head without even making an attempt at it. Tom asked, “You bleaching your hair?”
Jace put his hands on his hips and asked, “Why would I need to…?” But enough other changes had happened to him lately that he figured he’d better check it out. He wandered over to his car in the parking lot, crouched down and checked his reflection in the driver’s-side rear-view mirror. It could just be the way the sun was hitting it, but sure enough, his hair did look more platinum blond than his typical yellow-brown. “Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time in the sun.”
Tom heard a plinging sound from his phone and checked. "There's a pool party happening tonight." Jace looked interested, so Tom continued: "Christy Carson is hosting it." Now he had Jace's undivided attention. Christy had been one year their senior in high school, and become famous as the only woman to turn down Jace Ericsson after his perfume ad. Jace had said afterwards he only liked her because of how massive her tits were, but her turning down after only one heated night meant that she was a dent in his pride. Tom was certain that Jace had never been truly in love with Christy, but the way Jace checked his newly acquired muscle suggested that he thought he'd might have a shot this time. "Is she single?" Jace answered without looking at Tom. "Yeah," Tom answered, his heart sinking in his chest. He had had a massive crush on Christy since middle school, before she got her huge knockers, and a faint hope still lingered.
At least until Jace showed interest.
Jace, after some consideration in an unusually contemplative silence, finally said...