"They advertise it on TV. It's on the radio," says Attila Lakatosh, a 30-year-old artist who buffs his non-surgical form with grueling workouts at Idol's Gym. "Clothes are secondary here. Bodies are first."
The pressure to look great leads to extraordinary effort. Torturous hours in the gym? No problem. Lunch of lettuce and Evian water? Sure. A few thousand bucks for surgery to improve on what nature intended? Absolutely.
"Everyone here is beautiful," says Zeke's Roadhouse manager Tobin Wehrle, 25, watching a parade of perfect 10s from the bar's windows.
"You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
Everyone here also knows the gruesome outcomes for the three "patients" who have come forward so far. Here's what police say happened:
Alex Baez, 47, a champion bodybuilder and Mr. Universe contest runner-up, went to Silvestre this spring for a pectoral boost and left with female breast implants, a size-C bra cup.
A videotape of the procedure, now police evidence, shows the "doctor" using a kitchen-type spatula to force the large implants into Baez's muscled chest. He awoke several times, insufficiently drugged by the animal anesthetic, Ketamine.
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