Mike sat in the waiting room. He was happy to have made it on time, despite his GPS’s misdirections. Having seen the building on the website, he was fairly certain it wasn’t in the warehouse district, as his GPS had indicated. He’d been looking forward to this appointment with excitement and anxiety. He made the appointment six months ago, but the waiting list was so long that this was the first opportunity they had to schedule him. DeBrose Medical was an unusual for an independent practice. Dr. DeBrose himself was your standard, young MD. Supporting him was almost a dozen practitioners from across the field, including endocrinologists, dietitians, physical therapists, athletic trainers, exercise physiologists, and even a biochemist or two.
Mary carefully closed the door behind her. She was so tired. Stock girl at Danny’s Furniture Emporium wasn’t her choice of profession, but she didn’t have to wear a uniform, only a vest. That was her only requirement in a job: no uniforms. Her clothes, only. Most would call her picky, but her reasons for the restriction were more… practical.
Her shoes came off first. The 5’5” girl let her long, dark hair down from the bun, and relaxed for a moment. In the refrigerator was a few dozen steaks she’d prepared earlier in the week, a few gallons of milk, two full roasts, and a handful of odds and ends. She grabbed a few steaks and the least-full gallon jug of milk. Oh, and a bottle of steak sauce. Snack’s Spicy Southern Flavor tonight; it’s nice to mix it up every now and again. 2-0-0-Start. The microwave whirred to life with the steaks inside. In the meantime, she started heating her two kettles of water.
A megabuff woman having trouble getting some exercise. Even running would be difficult with her gigantic thighs.
The tablet buzzed.
“(1) New Message: Ginger Van Harald” the notification read.
“down for a run, nattie?”
Natasha's fingers danced across the screen.
“sorry ginny. still down from last week's.”
“its been 5 days tho!!”
“ikr?”
“lindsey's been dying for a run”
“go without me, ill be fine”
“you sure?”
“yea, go for it!”
your hyper girlfriend asks you to join her and her family for dinner at her house
“It’s no tux, but it’ll work,” you mutter to yourself as you slip on the salmon-colored polo. Meeting your girlfriends’ parents is usually a bit of a tense situation, but you feel as if you’ve gone off the deep end. Some girls’ dads would beat you to a pulp if you mistreat them, but Aria’s parents would fucking atomize you.
Character gets a magic/cursed item/artifact that rapidly increases their size and muscles as they work out
Thomas was no stranger to the gym. He had been going casually for years. Most of the time he spent there was on the treadmill, with the occasional dip in the pool. “Those weights are for jocks, right? There’s no way a stringbean like me would fit in,” he thought, eyeballing the free-weight room across the hall from his low perch on a recumbent cycle. The lithe man was not in bad shape, but he was by no means well-built. Thin, a bit on the lanky side, and built like a toothpick, he had often daydreamed about putting on some muscle. The prospect of having to track his nutrition and drink those horrible protein shakes had scared him off every time.
“You want to… what?” Avery asked incredulously.
“I um… I want to try being on top tonight,” she shyly replies.
Avery sat for a moment and contemplated the advance from his wife before placing his hand on her striated, globe-sized shoulder.
“It’s bad form to ask this, but you weigh how much right now, honey?” he replies.
“1014 pounds this morning… look, I see what you’re getting at. You know I don’t want to hurt you—”
“Addie, how can this work? I’m 5 foot nothing, and you’re… huge.”
“But-” she stammers.
“You’re built to handle huge weights, Addie. You curl 300lbs with just your arm. I’ve seen the weights you push with those pillar legs you’ve got. I’m just… not built to handle that kind of activity.”
“I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
The brass had gawked at the prospect of carrying these monsters on-board. Transportation of armored vehicles was one thing, but feeding and quartering soldiers that weighed as much was something else. Initially, they were only being moved by sea simply because they couldn’t be moved by air. These hypers did a real number on a ship’s crew carrying capacity. It took more than a rack of bunks just to house one of these beasts. With the admiralty’s complaints duly noted, the joint command insisted. Two carriers were designated for hyper-transport, and modifications were drafted. A year later, the first left port. The USS Albatross, previously deployed to the Japanese coast, was now ferrying these musclebound brutes across the ocean. The maiden voyage included 8 hyper service members from across the armed forces. All changes included, the Albatross had less than half of its original carrying capacity. The food stores had to be doubled, the standard fitness equipment had to be entirely redesigned to handle 10+ ton stresses, the works.
“But doc, I just feel so small compared to the other guys at the gym.”
The counselor sipped on his coffee as his patient continued.
“I can’t help staring at them – their heaving bodies, the weights they’re using… there’s no way I can ever be like that, but I want to so badly.”
The therapist jumped in. “Can you tell me why you want to be like them?”
His client stopped and wondered for himself. After a long pause, he admitted he didn’t know why, he “just did.”
Another sip of coffee. The therapist marked down a few notes in the chart, and flipped back to the beginning of the folder.
“You’ve been seeing me for a year and a half.”
The client nodded.
“When we started, you were 5’7”. You weighed 172lbs.”
The client continued to nod.
“I don’t have a scale handy, but I’m sure you’ve weighed yourself recently – how much do you weigh now?”
The tape reel in your hands shows its age. The label says “ANNOUNCE: HYPERS 9/18/1966” with a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare seal. Even if it weren’t for the mental images the archaic term “tape reel” evoked, the caked-on dust and grime from the station basement confirmed the date. It was one of the old standard-issue FCC broadcast reels for special events and emergencies. You tossed this one on the cart to check out upstairs. A few more reels were in the cabinet Station Management had you archiving. You have the distinguished honor of being the only winter intern, and the station needed to repurpose the basement as a studio before next fiscal year. You’ve learned some things on the assignment, but mostly you’re bored to tears. The tape scanner only runs at real-time, so you’re stuck watching hours-long nightly news broadcasts and advertisements that some jerk thought to save. This was the only reel so far that didn’t look like it was recorded in-station. That alone had earned it your interest. Your supervisor stopped by to make sure you were at least awake in front of the scanner. He noticed the unusual tin, and pulled up a chair as you loaded this one. The scanner focused in and finished its test sequence. You keyed in the filename and label from the tin, and the machine started. You had muted the speakers to save yourself from insanity during the earlier footage, but this one you (and your boss) wanted to hear. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare seal fades in, and a male narrator begins to read.
“This is a public service announcement from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Drew smiled to the receptionist through the door camera. She buzzed him in, as usual for 9:00 AM, Monday through Friday. This was his eighth year, seventh month, and twenty-third day at Shippman Inter-modal Transportation (usually just called Sh.I.M. by the more charitable, and something else by the less.) He was one of the four ShIM employees that had nothing to do with shipping, trucking, packaging, sorting, or logistics in general. Drew Prince was the sole Human Resources department of the entire shipping fleet. Every hire, fire, promotion, raise, and complaint rolled across his desk at one point or another. Today, Drew had the benefit of knowing ahead of time that today would be an unusual day. Today was Peter’s first day on-site. It was only a matter of time before it happened, but that didn’t do much to put Drew’s mind at ease. Peter had been Drew’s main project for the past six months.