Blaine was…

It was a difficult thing to quantify. Words should have sprung to his head so easily to complete the sentence. After all, he was just describing himself, wasn’t he? Yet the concept of himself was proving increasingly elusive. He had been a man, and then a nerd, and then a surfer dude, and now a roided-out beach stud. He’d cycled between them all in rapid succession. And at every single stage of that development, that version of him had felt utterly real.

Now, he was even more confused. Moving onto one stage of development usually meant letting the previous ones fall by the wayside. But Bunny’s burst just now had done something strange to his neurons. Suddenly, he found himself wrestling with four different versions of himself at once.

He had had the hot Asian babe right where he wanted her. She’d been swooning over him, wet for him, ready for him. Then, sudden as a storm at a beach, it was over. And he was left not just unfulfilled in the department of horniness, but also feeling…bad? She’d overreacted at being called a bimbo, and it was definitely overreacting, but maybe he shouldn’t have said it?

Nah dude, she’s totally just PMSing or something, came one voice.

She doesn’t appreciate you denigrating her like the rest of this regressive setting, insisted a second.

Shut up, nerd, chorused the other voices inside him.

It was all giving him such a headache. How could all these versions of himself be true? And if they were equally true, then what had he done, diving so headlong into this new version of himself? What reality was possible if he–?

A beach ball soared through his open window, smacking him upside the head. He staggered back into the wall, his huge body heavy enough to make the whole beach shack shake, it seemed. And the impact only added to that; though slight, Bikini Week rules still applied to all impacts, and sure enough another ten pounds of muscle sprouted across his body, evenly distributed across all the major groups to turn him into a serious slab of blonde, all-American beef.

Blaine grumbled. He should’ve known the narrative wouldn’t appreciate existential philosophizing on its watch. In fact, he was probably dancing on dangerous territory, even thinking a phrase like “existential philosoph–”

A second beach ball soared through the window and beaned him right on the head again. Another ten pounds of muscle pushed his veins even closer to the surface beneath his sun-tanned, cancer-free skin. His calves now looked bigger than his old self’s biceps.

He staggered to the window. A whole group of beachgoers were playing volleyball, even though elsewhere on the beach it was raining. It was as if the continuity on this cheap 80’s movie was as slapshod as its other production values. “What just happened?” he called to them, annoyed.

“Sorry, Blaine!” said Mimi, a long-legged brunette with a coy demeanor. “We accidentally knocked our beach ball out of bounds, and then our do-over with our backup beach ball accidentally followed the exact same trajectory as the first one!”

“What’re the odds?” Blaine grumbled.

Mimi frowned thoughtfully. “No, I’m pretty sure two is an even number…”

Her redheaded friend Ginger nudged her aside. “Come out and play with us, beefy boy!” she called with the kind of spunky, in-your-face attitude that was bound to get this exact clip of her character taken out of context and turned into a meme in about thirty years.

So that’s where that gif is from, thought a voice inside him.

Shut up, nerd, came the others.

Blaine considered this. He knew he should be racing off after Bunny. He didn’t like his best gal storming off like that. Didn’t like her being mad at him. He was the coolest guy on the beach, right? People were supposed to like the coolest guy on the beach. It felt bad that she didn’t.

You’re supposed to run off after her because you’re her partner, came that annoying voice. Help fix things, so the two of you can escape back to reality. Remember? Divert some blood back to your brain and remember.

He knew the annoying voice was right. He really did.

But the beach ball court had hot girls.

As he enjoyed the afternoon-and-then-evening of beach ball, he had a fucking blast. Every single time the ball came to him, he went horizontal in a dive, regardless of its practicality. His new body was incredible at this game, even when theoretically his bulk should have been at odds with the required agility. And the whole time, he was being adored.

The guys loved it, even when he scored on them. They were always high-fiving him, tossing him beers, subtly deferring to him in conversation. The girls were hanging all over him between plays, re-upping the tanning oil on his gleaming muscles, taking turns openly ogling the contours of his speedo over the top rims of their sunglasses. The synth vibes were tight, the neon sunset was hot, and he felt like the center of all of it.

No. Felt was a qualifier. He was the center of all of it.

This is what it does, said the voice–was it Wesley? Was it whatever sad sack had come before? It seduces you by giving you exactly what you want.

And then what? asked Blaine as he dove sideways into the sand again, his huge body gouging a correspondingly huge divot in it.

And then you lose yourself!

And then what? asked Blaine as one of his bros helped him up, their muscular forearms clasping each other’s in an of-the-time display of masculinity that was so heterosexual it almost accidentally looped back around to being gay.

And then you forget who you really are!

But who is who I really am? Blaine thought.

The beachball whizzed straight for his head.

Blaine’s thickly muscled arm shot out and caught it singlehandedly. All the other players erupted in rapturous applause for such a sweet, clutch catch.

As Blaine headed back to the house in the dark, he found himself turning back to Bunny. He wanted to go after her. He felt like he needed to take care of someone so delicate and cute. And he liked her. He really did. It wasn’t just that she was hot, or that she had huge boobs, or that he thought she would look good with her tight little exotic lips wrapped around the base of his massive white cock, though all of those were true. She had been resourceful, playful, witty, and eager to please him–maybe the most important trait of all, if he was being honest.

He didn’t understand her, though. He didn’t understand whatever crisis she was having. Yeah, this place had changed him. No question about it. But who was to say those changes weren’t for the better. It wasn’t just that the old version of him wasn’t hot, or strong, or good at sports, or able to pull off the bold fashion statement that was a high-cut neon magenta speedo. It was that the old version of him wouldn’t have just up and joined a spontaneous game of beach ball. Or been bold enough to casually flirt with a hot girl, even if it was just an excuse to put a possessive hand on her ass. Or be a front-row spectator at a wet t-shirt contest, where all the girls were having a wonderful time.

Maybe he couldn’t understand what Bunny was going through, he realized. For one thing, girls were way more emotional than logical, rational guys like him. But for another, this place definitely treated her differently. So he couldn’t go after her and tell her he understood her hesitation to give into the pleasures of being the hottest bitch on the beach.

But he could tell her that he wanted to understand. He could tell her that he wanted to help her.

It was settled, he decided. He would change into a new look–he wasn’t sure what clothes might fit him, or if he was just going to slap on some kind of going-out speedo and call it good. But then he would head off to the rainy part of the beach and figure out whatever was troubling Bunny’s cute little head.

But his light was on when he arrived home. He wasn’t exactly afraid; he was huge and strong now, and he also knew this Wasn’t That Kind Of Movie. But he was still wary as he crossed the threshold.

He saw the glimmer of the gold microdress first. His heart and his cock jumped for joy in unison: Bunny was back! Good. He could talk to her. Figure out what was going on with her. And then they could get back to where they were.

Anything you want to add there, genius? he asked his annoying voice.

No, no, it replied. We can escape after you resume that.

But when he opened his mouth to greet Bunny, the rest of her came into view: her glorious, obviously fake tits. Her makeup, now much more party-girl than professional. Her chestnut hair, teased sky-high by the joint power of Ronald Reagan and God Himself.

Blaine pointed a huge finger at her. “You’re…the business chick,” he said. He hadn’t meant to sound dumb, but it was getting easier by the second.

“Charlotte,” she said with a winning smile. She held up two beers, fresh from his fridge. “I thought we got off on the wrong foot at our meeting earlier this afternoon. I wanted to take some initiative and have another chance to introduce myself to you.” She offered one of the beers to him, then gently guided him to his couch.

And then sat right next to him on it.

She must be doing this to try and seduce me into signing over my property early, Blaine realized as she began to talk some business talk with her hand on his bare, muscular thigh. That’s actually a surprising amount of thematic depth for a film like this, putting me in a position to question what’s real and then setting me against a woman who’s either pretending to be turned on by me or actually turned on by me, increasingly unsure of which is–

A beach ball thudded against the window.

“I shut the window earlier,” Charlotte added smoothly. “I hope you don’t mind.”