Logan Caldwell was an imposing figure, at six foot six and 274 solid pounds of twitching muscle. His eyes were the steely, sharp grey that tended to intimidate his coworkers. The director of the fitness department at Lifetime Health Complex had worked hard for this body. He trained tirelessly every other day. He ate cautiously, when he ate at all. Yet still, after all this, he had failed to get a girlfriend for seven long years.
He sat presently in his cotemporary, air-conditioned office behind a one-way mirror overlooking the enormous fitness facility. Hundreds of exotic weight machines flexed and relaxed to the rhythmic sound of rained breathing. Lead blocks rose and fell. Metal shifted. A roomful of sweaty bodies, each consumed in their own activity, pulsed and contracted as one.
Caldwell was not distracted by the teeming mass of flesh and steel quivering beneath him. He focused his attention to the near corner of the room, where Caroline Chan was working out on the lat machine.
She was gorgeous: long, lean, jet black hair hanging limp at her bare shoulders as she pressed her forearms together. He'd been watching her for years on end. Planning. Waiting. He knew what he'd say, what he'd do. He ran over the conversation in his head for the millionth time.
"Caroline, it seems to me that your form has been rather off lately"
"Oh really? Then perhaps you would care to show me what I'm doing wrong."
"Of course" He would move in behind her, guiding her arms.
"Hmm.", she would moan, "You're good at this."
"Then maybe you'd like to come to my apartment later this afternoon."
"Wouldn't miss it." Now tired of admiring his idol from afar, Logan Caldwell made his move.

Caroline was intensely focused on what she was doing. She hardly noticed as he approached the machine. "Miss Chan." He squeaked uncharacteristically, "I mean Caroline. I mean-"
"What?" she snapped, not bothering to stop her workout.
"Well, I was watching you, and I just wanted to say that, um, well."
"What?" She was more persistent this time.
"Your form is off." He sounded nervous, no his usual intimidating self.
Caroline stopped and turned around to face him. She glared. "My form is off."
"Yes."
"You think my form is off." She was unconvinced.
"Well, I didn't mean that-"
"Mister, I have been working out here for years. I think I know how to use a lat machine. Now if you'd please leave me be, I'd like to continue without further interruption."
She did not have to finish her sentence before he was off, storming briskly off to his office. Honestly, she thought, the nerve of that guy. She repositioned herself in the leather seat and began working away.

Caldwell felt the anger boiling under his well-tanned olive skin. He entered his office and slumped into his rolling chair. This was not the way he had planned it. He had been so sure of himself, and he had failed. All that planning gone to waste.
Or not. A control panel blinked and hummed on the far wall of his office. He slid his chair over to the panel, feeling a sense of power seep back into his veins. An assortment of buttons gleamed under a grid of liquid crystal screens, displaying a clear view of each of the gym's weight machines. Caldwell had had the panel built for this very purpose.
He ran his gaze up and down the rows upon rows of screens. Finally, he located the view of Caroline on her precious piece of equipment. He pushed a button, locking the camera into place, and began his work.

As she pulled herself into a spread-eagle type position, the hundred and fifty pounds of lead lifted on their wires. A metal arm thrust out from the jumble of metal bars, hovering inches above her flexed abdomen. The arm produced a glimmering scalpel. Its tiny blade was drawn along her ivory skin, up from her belly button, under her sports bra and over her heart. Cuffs sprang from the padded footrest, locking her legs into positioned. The great arms of the machine swung backward, dislocating her shoulders and forcing her arms into a contorted position behind her back.
At last, a great spike was drawn from the mighty machine's inner workings. She shrunk away from its menacing pinnacle, pointed directly at the center of her forehead. She squirmed and writhed as it inched closer to her face, but it was no use. She screamed.

Fifty yards away, two steely grey eyes watched from behind a wall of one-way glass.