Vaillant's Vanishing Volume

[I'm writing two stories about a gym curse that affects a number of people at a gym; this version features a shrinking curse! They start the same but will go in wildly different directions... obviously!]

Antoine still had twelve weeks to go before his competition, but on his second check-in with his coach, he was already thinking about quitting. The pictures looked great: the bulk he’d cultivated in the offseason looked nice and dense, his muscle bellies full. All that was left to do was carve the muscle out from the fluff and he was sure to blow minds when he got onstage.

One major problem: he was three whole inches shorter than he’d been the week before.

At first, he ignored the dip in his strength as he struggled for eight reps with weights he’d easily lifted twelve times per set the week before. His compression tights seemed slack when he pulled them over his powerfully built legs. Even his baseball cap sat lower on his head.

There was no denying that something was happening to him. His thumb hovered over the “send” button before finally pressing it. The pictures looked fine, of course; without a point of reference, he looked fantastic, big and hard, leaning out on schedule. But there was no denying he was smaller.

Doorknobs and countertops seemed too high. None of his XXXL-sized clothes fit anymore. For his progress photos, he’d had to pull on an old set of posing trunks from years ago that had shrunk in the wash… and they were still a little baggy.

“Pics look good,” came the reply from his coach, Hugh. “Weight?”

Antoine winced. He had to face what was going on; there was no use hiding it. “277,” he tapped back.

“The fuck? Typo?” Hugh texted back. Antoine sighed deeply, starting from his gut. One week before, he’d weighed 300 pounds.

*

Antoine got to the gym thirty minutes early for his 9 AM client, Wayne. He’d dug out an old sweatshirt that seemed to swallow him up, but seemed to obscure his loss of size. An old girlfriend had years ago left a pair of sweatpants that were the only thing that fit. They were light blue and clung tightly to his wide-built thighs (his junk on display as a prominent bulge up front). He cringed as he remembered how much smaller that woman had seemed; now he could squeeze into her clothes.

As he approached the door, he found himself throwing out his arms, trying to flare out his upper body to look larger. He hadn’t postured this way since he was a teen, trying to look big around the established giants at the gym. Someone he didn’t recognize held the gym’s front door open as he approached. Without even thinking, Antoine stood on his tiptoes as he walked by.

At the front desk, Antoine froze when he saw Mark, the Global Gym manager. Mark and Antoine were the same height. Every morning he saw Mark at the front desk in his GG staff shirt. The desk usually came to Mark’s waist, but today it sat above his belly button. The blue polo with the Global Gym logo embroidered on the left chest looked baggy on his muscular frame.

The two stared at each other for a full minute. “Holy shit,” they finally both said in tandem.

“You’re… so, it’s…” Mark began, anxiously fidgeting with a clipboard, unable to look at the diminished pro-athlete in front of him.

“Yeah,” Antoine said, unable to form it into words. He’d explained all he could to Hugh before: “I’m smaller, I don’t know why, I don’t know when it will stop.” Clearly he wasn’t going through it alone.

“Morning, gentlemen!” said a deep voice with an arrogant tone. Antoine whirled around to watch Clark Wainwright walk through the door, a smarmy grin on his face. Antoine’s fists doubled up, his instinct to knock out that blonde punk spiking at the sight of him. But as Clark approached, he shivered: he and Clark were now the same height. “Antoine! Looking HUGE, as usual!” Clark said, putting a pointed emphasis on the word “huge” as he leaned up to look at the top of Antoine’s head, something that was impossible a week before.

“Morning, Clark,” Mark said with a sigh. “Your dad was by earlier. He wanted to make sure we stocked the flavor of energy drink you liked…”

“Good,” Clark said with a smile. “Uh, Mark, your shirt’s looking a little baggy there. That’s not exactly the image we want at the front desk at Global Gym. My dad isn't paying you to look sloppy, my man!”

Mark nervously tucked his shirt into his pants as if he could hide all the excess. “Yeah, got it,” he said with an exhausted tone. “Your dad mentioned that too. We’re getting new polos in… it’ll be taken care of right away.”

“I hope so,” Clark said. He turned to Antoine. “And you, Meat-man… I suppose we won’t have any more issues like the other day?”

Antoine opened his mouth to bark back, but an idea suddenly occurred to him. He furrowed his brow. “Wait a minute…” he said, starting to piece things together.

“We won’t,” Mark said. “Your dad and I talked about the issue. The other day was just a misunderstanding. Won’t happen again.”

“I should hope not!” Clark said with a wink, strutting by to head toward the treadmills. He whistled at a young woman squatting as he passed.

“Antoine,” Mark said, leaning across the desk. “His dad wasn’t messing around. He doesn’t even want to keep this place as a gym. If he had his way, he’d level it and make it a parking garage. But his son likes to come here, so…”

“He fucking did it,” Antoine said as two men walked in behind them, both of them taller than the pro-bodybuilder. “He’s doing this to us!”

Mark scoffed. “I mean… he’s a pain in the ass, and his dad’s rich, but…”

“Look, last week, I told him I’d pound him in the face,” Antoine said in a hushed voice. “And you sided with me. Now, look at us!” Antoine gestured between himself and the well-built gym manager. “This is crazy, but… he’s making us smaller somehow!”

Antoine and Mark stared across the busy gym floor at Clark, who catcalled passing women from his elliptical. Antoine’s first impulse was to march across the gym, yank Clark’s scrawny ass from the machine, and slap him around until he learned some respect–just as he’d done the week before–but if Clark had somehow made Mark and Antoine shrink, what else was he capable of?