Dr ZEUS MESMER'S DYNAMIC BODY PROGRAM
Synopsis: After an unfortunate encounter with a bully on the beach, nerdy student Ford finds an old fitness program left on his front doorstep. By following it's strangely compelling instructions Ford discovers you can never take body building too far. The dark, dark journey of a nice young man becoming a hulking brute and taking the young women around him along for the ride.
FRIDAY: You've got male.
"Continue along State Route One for another eight-hundred meters then turn left..."
Ford frowned at the soft, infuriatingly calm voice of his phone's GPS and leaned forward over the steering wheel trying to spot any sign of a turnoff ahead.
It had been a long, scenic drive from Monterey down the Pacific Coast Highway if not a particularly comfortable one. Oh sure, his parents old Volvo V70 wagon was spacious enough and the air-conditioning still worked, even if it was a bit stale but the source of the awkward tension was the young woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him.
Marina was a college student; fresh-faced, young and beautiful. They had met at California State University where Ford was a junior suffering through the third year of his Business Administration degree.
He had been chilling on the expansive green-space--which the College called it's "Meadow" for some unknown reason--trying to organize the notes from his BUS 307 - Finance class when the stunning, barely eighteen brunette had broken from her group of giggling friends, strutted confidently across the carefully maintained lawn and
told
him to ask her out!
He could still remember his own confusion as she had stood there smiling confidently at him, a slender hip cocked coquettishly and her perky, budding breasts thrust out at him looking like the sweetest bloom of youth begging to be plucked. Her vibrant green eyes sparkling with untold mischief behind her glasses. Those glasses... Ford had quickly come to suspect Marina's new eye-wear had a lot to do with them going out together.
________________
Their first date had been nothing special, just coffee at the Library Cafe since Ford couldn't rationally afford much else with his accumulating student debt forever in the forefront of his mind. He had cleaned up as best he could in chino pants and a smart button down shirt then Marina had turned up looking like a picture straight out of a Forever 21 catalog.
She had sauntered into the quiet space wearing sprayed on high-top jeans clinging to her long, long legs and slim hips with tall platform wedge sandals that worked miracles on her tight shelf of an ass. Her snowy white, slinky crop-top was so scant and tight it appeared glued to her firm, pert, upturned breasts and revealed a long stretch of her smooth, toned stomach. Her dark chocolate hair was in twin school-girl pigtails that draped down over her shoulders.
Ford had tried his best. When she had politely asked about him, he had started to tell her about his business studies and his plans to join his father in their family custom auto parts business but it hadn't been long before she was bulldozing the conversation onto her favorite topic. Herself.
"Do you like my new glasses? Oh my god but you must think I look like a
total
geek!"
She had been wearing a trendy pair of large cateye spectacles. Her parents had sent her for an eye check after she started having headaches during the final push towards high-school graduation. Marina had initially been mortified to discover she needed prescription lenses until she saw one influencer or another modeling some stylish frames on Pinterest.
Ford didn't know what all the fuss was about. He wore glasses himself, plenty of students did but Marina was fixated on herself...
"It's, like, Geek Chic you know? That's actually a
thing
, isn't it wild?"
The gorgeous freshman had her Instagram account open and displayed photos of herself in short pleated skirts and white knee socks that showcased her slender calves and plenty of smooth thighs. There were tied-off sheer, sumptuous blouses or slim-cut blazers with little on beneath them buttoned just enough to emphasize the swell of her burgeoning cleavage and flash hints of her small belly button.
In each of them she had captured her own visage, often pouting from under the over-sized eye-wear that dominated her exquisite face. Ford hadn't known what to say or where exactly he fit into all of this?
The coffee date had continued down the same lines. Ford kept up as best he could until after the longest twenty minutes of his young life Marina had asked him for his phone. Dutifully he had unlocked it and passed it to her in a bit of an addled haze. She had tapped away at the screen for a silent half a minute before handing it back to him with an encouraging wink.
Looking down Ford saw that she had the Instagram app installed on his phone and he was now following exactly one person. Then the excitable teen queen got to her feet, typing away at her own phone, and left the cafe with hips swishing in hypnotic fashion.
She hadn't even touched her coffee...
________________
"Hey dude, are we nearly there yet? It's kind of cramped back here..."
Nick, his lifelong neighbor and sometimes friend, had been fighting a losing battle with the pole of the beach umbrella jutting from the back of the wagon for the better part of the hour-long, winding trip through the picturesque hills on the California coastline.
Ford and Nick's fathers were fishing buddies. Somehow this had the trickle-down expectation that the two young men would become fast friends too but that wasn't entirely the case. Sure they got along just fine but Ford would never call him a close friend.
Nick was overweight, socially awkward at the best of times and off-putting in personal interactions. He also had a bad habit of running his mouth then playing the offended party when inevitably called on it, only to parlay any sympathy he could garner into petty favors later on. So it was no surprise when Nick had been fast to insinuate himself into Ford's plans of taking his new girlfriend to the beach on Friday.
"I too would like to stretch my legs soon, please
Beaford
"
Beside Nick and divided from him by a sloshing water cooler in the middle of the backseat was Lysiane. The soft-spoken, little strawberry blonde was the French exchange student Ford's parents had welcomed into their home when his younger sister had decided to spend her Freshman year studying overseas.
Ford wasn't complaining, he had lost a grumpy, frumpy, public crusader of a sister. In her place he has gained a kindly, curvy French country-girl with big blue eyes, a dead-sexy accent and a sweet, innocent smile that effortlessly warmed people's hearts. She was a welcome, refreshing breath of fresh air and Nick, with his usual undeserved confidence, had quickly called dibs on her.
As if the guy's desire for the bouncy, cheerful blonde gave him some kind of claim to the poor girl. Ford
hated
that petty high-school bullshit...
"We should be there real soon, Lizzy. I bet you're going to love it, my pledge sister Steph said there are some really hot guys there." Marina said excitedly, making Ford frown.
He glanced into the rear-view mirror and met Lysiane's puzzled expression.
That. That right there was the source of the unease for this entire journey and--if Ford was being honest with himself--just another red flag in his burgeoning relationship with Marina. Lysiane had picked up on it too. Marina had spent the entire trip down updating her socials on her phone and chatting about the great glamor shots she was going to get with all the hot guys on the beach.
What was Ford then, her chauffeur?
________________
"This is it?" Nick groaned as they stepped out onto the hot white sands of the small beach. Marina had said that Steph's directions would be good and here they were, the two guys laden down with the young brunette's beach essentials. Nick looked red in the face and was panting from the walk down the steep slope. Ford was faring only a little better and even poor Lysiane was breathing hard as she readjusted her grip on the water cooler.
Honestly the turnoff had been almost invisible from the highway, barely a narrow dirt access road hidden by seaside scrub-land. Ford was actually surprised to discover there was a beach here. They were deep into the State Park now, far from any signs of civilization. So it was startling to find the small stretch of sand well populated with... college coeds?
Not just any coeds either but smoking hot college coeds!
Scattered about the white sands were ravishing, exceedingly thin, long-limbed young women beautifully engaged in all manner of seaside fun. Basking on beach towels and drinking up the bright sunshine with their smooth flawless skin. Giggling and splashing in the shallow waves as they pranced like show ponies in scandalously small bikinis and sheer cut-out one-piece swimsuits.
There was even a small beach volleyball game setup with what could have been four Scandinavian pro players (or perhaps Swedish lingerie models) bouncing about and spiking the ball over a raised net.
Ford felt like he had stepped onto the set of a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated Magazine as his eyes roamed over firm tanned flesh, soft pronounced curves and slim tight bodies. They all were so completely out of his league that Ford was suddenly, crushingly body-conscious. Beside him Nick visibly slumped and curled into himself defensively like a turtle trying to hide into its shell at the sight of such physical supremacy.
Ford might charitably have been called lean at best and stringy at worst. He couldn't have felt more out of place when Marina pushed past him and gasped excitedly at the picture-perfect scene before them. All she was carrying was a fashionably small beach bag... of course.
"Oh. My. God. Isn't this place great?" She spouted as Nick actively groaned under the weight of his heavy burdens.
"Would be nicer if you helped carry all your crap..." He muttered sourly under his breath.
To his detriment he wasn't quiet enough and Marina rounded on him with a saccharine sweet smile that bared all her pearly white teeth.
"Remind me who invited you along? Why are you here again?" She asked airily with a hint of an edge behind her honeyed tone.
It took Nick aback, of course it did. As much as Ford generally liked his neighbor he would happily admit that Nick had all the spine of an invertebrate. The sudden confrontation cowed Nick immediately and he was beet-red as he wheezed out a breathless response.
"I just...
Ummm