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 in the mirror more often than usual – and Jace usually checked himself out a lot. Tom could understand why. Jace appeared to be losing a lot of muscle, and his expression was not always positive. Tom, of course, sat in an office all day, but it seemed that despite having his own weight room and a lot of spare time - basically all of his time was spare time - Jace had stopped working out. Nevertheless, he wasn't looking pudgy.
Finally one night, Jace was lying flat on the sofa, wearing nothing but board shorts and trying in futility to bounce his pecs. Tom asked him, "Dude are you dieting or something? You look a lot skinnier." Jace displayed no emotion. "Nope. I'm lifting the same, eating the same... I dunno, maybe I've got a tapeworm or something," he said with a joking smile. Tom wasn't so sure that it was a joke.
The next day they were out eating at McDonald's, and Jace had to excuse himself to go to the toilet. When he entered, there were two guys standing at the urinal. Both were muscled, more so than he had been just a few week ago. He placed himself between them and let out his dick. He allowed himself a look, just to make himself feel better. The guy on the right was black, with big biceps and a decent cock. Jace estimated five and a half inches flaccid.
The other guy was even huger, white and probably close to seven feet tall. He was packing muscle, alright - but in his pants? Not so much. Probably four-four and a half inches there. Then, the big guy turned his head and saw Jace checking him out.
"Jealous, faggot?" he drawled. God, was he drunk here, at a McDonald's? At noon? "Yeah, you wish," Jace countered. He wouldn't show deference to a smaller-dicked hill-billy.
"Please," the black guy said from the left. "At least he has some size, and not, what? Is it even two inches long?"
Jace was confounded. He looked down at his dick. He knew he was hung, he had measured it countless times in high school, he always came up to eight and a half inches. But when he looked between his legs, what he saw looked nothing like the hot, heavy, tan schlong he was used to. Instead, a little snail hung there, above two small testicles each the size of a grape. The black dude was right - it was barely even two inches! Embarassed, Jace quickly finished and washed his hands. He heard the other two, newly more hung guys sniggering. When looking into the mirror above the sink, he had to look twice.
There was something... off about his face. His lips seemed fuller, his nose seemed smaller. Were his eyelashes that long? Were his eyebrows so thin? He hurried out to Tom.
Tom sat eating his BigMac when Jace came out of the bathroom, looking terrified. He looked... off. The clothes which formerly fit him tight enough for each pec to be outlined was too big for him, his face looked different, and he looked terrified.
"Tom, bro, we need to leave. Now." Tom hesitated. "Why? What did you do?" He swore, if Jace had beaten up another guy again...
"No, no, it's not something like !that!" Jace shut up. "What is !happ!ening?" his voice jumped an octave higher in some beats. What the fuck, Tom thought. "Okay, let's go."