Pre-brunch bellies: Amelia & Angelica

Edit: It's amazing how looking at an image on a different screen (laptop this time) can reveal things! Noticed Amelia's hair had a few gaps and her skin tone around her tummy was a bit off, so made a few tweaks.

'Two hundred Dirhams on the tall blonde.'

There was something in Dion's voice, something slightly too casual, that made Hassan hesitate. He narrowed his eyes, looking even more closely at the four stunningly glamorous young women who were being ushered into the VIP area.

It certainly wasn't a chore. The female brunch guests - glossy influencers, elegant executives, socialites, actresses and trophy wives - were one of the perks of working at the Qasr Al Jamal. It was barely midday, and already the outdoor area was full of wealthy western beauties, posing for selfies in front of the shimmering fountains, leaning over the wooden bridges to point and coo at the turtles sculling lazily in the turquoise pools beneath. Whichever way Hassan turned, his eyes were treated to the pooch and tease of fashionably plump female bottoms, shifting beneath delicate satins and lifting flimsy beach slips as their owners bent forward to pluck a chunk of sushi here, a slice of cheesecake there, and countless other delicacies from the hotel's forty eight unlimited gourmet cooking stations.

But this woman, this tall blonde... Ah, she was something else! Hassan had only seen her from behind, but it was enough. Endless legs that seemed to glide with an almost ghostly elegance across the marble tiles. Waves of sleek blonde hair gleaming like brightly polished gold in the sun, floating down past delicate shoulders so that the softly curling tips caressed the curve of her lower back, just above the swell of those deliciously full yet perfectly shaped buttocks. He wouldn't have been surprised if she'd ignored the bridge leading to the VIP area and simply walked directly over the water. 

She was perfect. The closet thing to a goddess Hassan had ever seen.

Which was why Dion's bet seemed so odd. Of the four women, this slender blonde goddess would have been Hassan's last pick. True, she was taller than the others, and she did have a quite... substantial rear end. Hassan's head swaying in sync with her lovely hips, tracking the shifts of that generous rump, which quivered with such tantalising abundance beneath the flimsy mesh of her skirt. 

But compared to the others...

'I'm going with the brunette,' he announced confidently, his eyes still fixed on the blonde. And then he swore loudly. 

For even before the words had finished leaving his mouth, Hassan's tall ethereal goddess had, with a haughty toss of that lovely golden hair, turned towards her table, presenting a side-profile view.

And suddenly Dion's bet made far more sense.

It seemed so out of place, so inconsistent with her delicate perfection that for a moment Hassan was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. He scrunched them shut, and then opened them again. But it was no illusion. Between the high, splendid bosom and those lean, elegant legs, there sprouted forth from his golden goddess's midriff a fully formed potbelly. 

Not the enticing softness Hassan had expected. Not the pinched wasp waist he might've dreamed of. A potbelly. A jutting, spoilt, greedy little paunch that puffed up like a roll of dough in a pizza oven as the blonde lowered herself into her cushioned chair, bubbling pudgily over the waistband of her skirt. For the briefest moment she glanced down and scowled at it, as one might scowl at an unwanted pet that had just leapt into one's lap. Then her look of serene self-assurance was back. With another haughty toss of her hair, she turned her attention to the drinks menu that was being handed to her by a snivelling waiter.

'I still say the brunette,' Hassan snapped, feeling cheated in more ways than one. He turned his eyes to his choice, considering her thoughtfully. She was pretty enough in her own way, with beautiful olive skin that seemed to strain a little around her overall plumpness. Hassan would probably have called her stunning if she hadn't been overweight, and standing alongside the blonde. 'Look at the meat on those thighs,' he said, watching the brunette's thick legs spread out as they touched down on the cushions. 'And she has a hungry look about her.'

'Aye,' said Dion. 'Too hungry. Have you seen the way she's gazing around?'

Hassan looked, saw it, and swore again. Sure enough, the brunette's deep brown eyes were bulging like squids as they swivelled between the five cooking stations next to the bar, and her jaw was hanging slightly ajar, teeth bared. Her expression resembled that of a starving leopard salivating before a row succulent, crippled antelope. Which could mean only one thing...

'A first timer,' Dion chuckled knowingly. 'An extra fifty says she'll be spewing in the bathroom before noon.'

'You are both fools.'

Hassan and Dion felt a large arm loop around their shoulders, as Davide, stepped in between then. 'My bet is on the lovely Angelica, he continued, his voice jaunty as ever. 'She always eats big.' 

A small, secretive smirk twitched at the corner of Davide's lips as he gazed at the table of women. 'Plus, it's her cheat day.'

Dion rounded on him, indignant, but Davide only grinned and shrugged, a greasy dark corkscrew of hair bobbing above his right eye. 'Instagram,' he said, patting his colleague on the shoulder. 'Always check the gram, my friends. Always check the gram.'

Hassan, meanwhile, was staring at the table in disbelief. He swore for a third time. The athletic looking girl sitting opposite the blonde and brunette was indeed Angelica Clay. How had he not recognised her? She was a frequent guest at the Jamal, not to mention a local celebrity: a semi-pro footballer turned personal trainer, whose sudden marriage to a greasy ex-pat accountant some forty years her senior had been a minor news item when she'd moved to Dubai the previous year. Since then Angelica had developed a reputation as one of the toughest personal trainers on the circuit, and a rather notorious party girl.

Her hair was different, Hassan realised, watching the tanned beauty rise from her seat with a bounce of her voluptuous bosom. That was why he hadn't recognised her. Slightly darker than usual, it was - like gold freshly mined and polished to a gleam, twisting from her crown in abundant curls that hung gloriously around her cheeks and neck. 

She's changed it to distinguish herself from the other two blondes, thought Hassan, with a rueful smirk. Angelica didn't strike him as someone who liked to blend in, or be upstaged. 

And that was what worried him. Of the four women, Angelica was certainly in the best shape. But Davide was right: she had a big, proven appetite, as you'd expect from a personal trainer who specialised in aesthetics and powerlifting. And she was competitive, of course, being a former sportswoman. Hassan had seen her at brunch before - with her fiancé, or more often with her girlfriends, and he could remember Angelica always being the one who seemed to go back for another slice of gateau or cheesecake after the others had reached their limit, as if taking a perverse pride in her ability to out-eat the others. 

That said, she didn't have a potbelly, like the tall blonde, and her thighs though thick with muscle, were not as plump and soft as the brunette's. 

And she was certainly nowhere near the size of the other, older blonde. 

And yet... as Hassan watched Angelica barge past a hapless young man on her way to the pizza counter, he couldn't help feeling that the hairstyle wasn't the only thing that was different about her. Was it his imagination, or was Angelica looking a little... Hassan tried to find the word. Chunky? Being a powerlifter, she had always looked thick and well-nourished, with a big round bubble butt born of countless squats and heavy deadlifts. But somehow her thickness seemed... softer than Hassan remembered. The shiny calves of which Angelica was clearly so proud looked particularly bulbous above her bejewelled ankles, and as Hassan's eyes scanned up to her waist, elegantly exposed beneath the criss-cross purple and cloth of gold sashes of her halter top, he couldn't help thinking it looked very smooth for a personal trainer. Not fat by any means, but soft... even a little spongy.

'Looks like this isn't the only cheat day she's had recently,' he muttered, almost to himself.

Dion was less tactful. 'We all know Angelica eats like a pig, and she's putting on weight,' he said, waving a dismissive hand. 'But she's too fond of carbs. Give it an hour - that soft tummy will be too bloated with beer and bread to hold more than a token helping of dessert. You'll see.' Dion nodded confidently. 'No, I'm sticking with the tall one. See the way she glides around? See those emeralds about her neck? She's upper class. Proper British aristocracy. Probably one of the Windsors, or-- or something. She'll be used to rich food, and that belly didn't get there by accident, did it? You want in on this Ruben?'

A small youth, whose floor-sweeping had brought him alongside the others, looked up.

'Huh?'

'We are taking bets,' Hassan said impatiently, nodding towards the table, to which the quartet of beauties were now returning with heavily loaded trays of food. 'On which of those four rich Western women is going to stuff down the most food. Two hundred dirhams in.'

Ruben gulped. All told, he had barely a hundred dirhams to his name. But he was new at the Al Jamal, having recently escaped life as a construction worker, and he wanted to make friends. He leaned on his broom, studying the women. Aware of Hassan's tapping foot, he said:

'Uh, the big one?'

Groans from the others, and a sharp hissing of breath being sucked in through teeth.

'Rookie error my friend,' Davide said, slinging a paternal arm around around Ruben's shoulder (something Hassan felt Davide did far too much, just to remind everyone that he was the tallest). 'The fattest ones,' Davide continued, with the air of a schoolteacher, 'never eat the most. Look. Observe. See how much she's piled onto her tray? This is what the really big ones do, you see. They're too heavy and lazy to keep hauling their fat arses to the buffet, so they pile up their plates to the heavens on the first run. And then,' Davide made scooping motions with his hands, 'gobble gobble gobble... they wolf it all down like a hog at the trough.' He shook his head solemnly. 'Too much food - too many different types of food at once. It's a recipe for indigestion, and an early tap out.' Davide shrugged and took a step back. 'Either that, or they fall asleep. The big ones can't cope with the heat.''

Although in this case, he thought to himself, it might not even come to that. The big blonde in question, who was sitting next to Angelica, looked so utterly massive that Davide honestly wondered if the wooden bridges might not collapse beneath her bulk. The cushioned chairs in the VIP area were wide and sturdy, designed to accommodate the wider bottoms that had been made so fashionable by the Kardashians. But this blonde had perhaps the fattest rear end he'd ever seen - so bloated and swollen that it was stuffed under the armrests and sagging over the sides. She had to be close to four hundred pounds. 

Looking at her, Davide felt a sudden wave of uncertainty. What if he was wrong? She was so huge, this woman, so much fatter than the others. Perhaps she would buck the trend and eat the most. All of a sudden his theory, based on four years of experience at the Al Bajha, seemed thrown into doubt.

But that doubt faded as Davide remembered something else - another bit of information he'd picked up from Instagram, something he hadn't mentioned to the others, and wouldn't mention, at least until he had managed to persuade them to double their bets.

Angelica Clay wasn't just on a cheat day. 

She was also in a bulking cycle.

Davide looked at the gorgeous blonde fitness instructor, dunking a ham dough ball into garlic sauce and then shoving the whole thing into her mouth, cheeks bulging. He rubbed his hands together. Let battle commence, my friends, he thought. Let battle commence!