Synopsis: When Byron finds a humiliating photo of himself that he cannot explain, he decides to reconnect with someone who claims to be an old friend...
Keywords: mind control, hypnosis, humiliation, obedience, clueless, exhibitionist, voyeur, CMNM.
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Chapter 1
Byron Stone did not like Halloween.
It was not always like that. He could, in fact, remember a time when it was his favourite holiday. While, for most people, childhood would be the period in their life for which they had the most cherished memories of All Hallows Eve, it was not so for Byron. Rather, it was Halloween during his teenage years which he looked back on fondly -- not so much just for what he himself did (that is, partaking in the tomfoolery and carnivalesque celebrations typical for the October occasion), but for the opposite sex did during that time.
As a teen with raging hormones, the "slutty costumes" characteristically worn by members of the fairer sex on and around the 31st of October were a treat he had, in those days, looked forward to all year. Moreover, while the greatest thrill came from the voyeuristic satisfaction of seeing a public display of bodies that were normally much more private, carnal delights also regularly accompanied the holiday for the teenage Byron. Puberty, after all, had been immensely generous to him and he had had no trouble attracting amorous attention, with his head-above-others height, beefy build, TV-worthy good looks, and rugged manliness (even well before anyone would call a teenage boy a "man") all making him stand out from the crowd.
Now in his early 30s, however, Byron could barely stomach the holiday.
He could distinctly pinpoint the year when a profound change in attitude towards Halloween had come over him. He had no idea what had brought it on, but in 2008 he had greeted the approach of October 31st with a deep-seated dread, knots inexplicably forming in his guts whenever he turned his mind towards it.
Despite still being someone who enjoyed letting loose at a party no matter what the occasion, the mere hint of a Halloween shindig taking place now resolutely kept Byron home. Indeed, even the thought of the thing that had once given him such a thrill -- scantily-clad members of the opposite sex parading about -- now provoked instead an inexplicable sense of profound anxiety within him.
Of course, Byron had found ways to rationalize away his massive shift in attitude. 2008 was, after all, a year that had come with many significant changes in his life. He had flunked out of college after the fall semester of 2007 and, much to his chagrin, had moved back to the small town he'd thought he'd left behind, falling into a nine-to-five grind working at the family hardware store.
In retrospect, Byron surmised that his loss of enthusiasm for Halloween had just been the first step towards the joyless adulthood he now occupied.
By all rights, Byron's life was not a bad one -- although it was, admittedly, far from perfect. At 31, Byron was settling into mid-adulthood, with varied successes and failures accumulating in his life.
On the one hand, despite his initial embarrassment at having to return to his one-horse hometown, Byron had come to occupy a place of modest respect in the community. Now the owner and operator of the family business -- his parents having retired a couple years ago -- everyone around town knew vaguely who Byron Stone was (although more knew him as "that burly stud who runs the hardware store" than by his actual name).
Moreover, simply by virtue of how he existed in the world, Byron accrued a fair amount of admiration from these small-town folk. After all, he effortlessly embodied a calm masculinity and a natural ruggedness that many a small-town man aspires to portray.
On the other hand, it seemed like some things were catching up with Byron.
In his 20s, he'd believed what others saw in him: he was a real man's man, someone who would flourish running a hardware store in a town with as many residents total as students had attended the college he'd dropped out of. He chatted up girls locally and in the nearby towns, took the ones who caught his eye on dates, and, just like he was supposed to, married the one who seemed to fit best with what everyone thought Byron should want.
By the time 30 rolled around, however, Byron could not hide it any longer. To all outside appearances, Sheila and he were an ideal match. But, for reasons he couldn't name, his heart was never in it -- he was just going through the motions with less and less conviction every day -- and eventually Sheila cottoned on to it, too.
October marked the beginning of their separation. Rumours were flying ("Did you hear that nice young couple that lives on Main Street filed for divorce?" -- "The lumberjack from the hardware store was cheating on his wife!" -- "Sheila Stone is out to get herself a younger man"), but Byron paid them no mind.
Rather, Byron was convinced his life going forward was just going to be the same day-in-day-out: smile at the customers, go for beers with the guys, probably eventually marry some other woman who fit with the expectations of the community around them (and hope that this one would stick around even after realizing his heart wasn't in it).
He was resigned to his fate: you live, you work, you die.
That was, until an unexpected Friend Request sent Byron down quite a different path.
October 30th was the day Byron would start to uncover why his feelings towards the holiday had changed -- and it was all thanks to a notification on his phone.
He'd been sitting in his office at work -- normally shared with other senior staff, but rather vacant since work-from-home had taken off with most of the others. However, finding his own home far too empty since Sheila had departed, Byron had not minded "taking one for the business" and still coming in every day to take care of administrative duties on site.
Of course, with no one else around, Byron felt little need to "lead by example" and, in fact, spent a fair amount his time on his phone. He did not hesitate for a moment before picking it up to see what notification had come up on his screen.
Friend Request
Patrick O'Neill is requesting to be your friend.
Byron did not recognize the name, but he knew enough O'Neills to think that it may be someone he'd remember if he had something to jog his memory.
Clicking on the requester's profile, nothing about Patrick's appearance in his picture rang any bells -- however, his features were distinctive enough that Byron thought he'd probably remember him if they'd met before. While some aspects of Patrick's appearance were unremarkable -- just another thin, 30-something white guy -- his cheekbones were prominent, his nose was large, his jawline was strong, and his vividly red hair was hard to miss. In other words, such distinctive features suggested that he would not be easy to forget.
Still, while Byron didn't recognize the requester at all, it seemed like there was probably some connection. According to Facebook, the two had six mutual friends -- all guys that Byron knew from his single-semester stint as a college man (although, strangely enough, not anyone that he spoke to anymore... In fact, he couldn't think of anyone from that period in his life that he'd kept up with after dropping out, these Facebook friends being little more than strangers he'd never thought to remove).
Figuring that a photo from the era during which Byron and Patrick would have met would probably be the thing that would actually jog his memory -- people's appearances can change a lot in over a decade, after all -- Byron starting flipping back through Patrick's photos.
By and large, the photos were unexceptional -- just random moments in a stranger's life. Patrick blowing out birthday candles, Patrick wearing a lab coat, Patrick and another man holding a puppy, Patrick and a group of other strangers in front of some unknown building, etc.
Then -- like a strike of lightning -- a photo Byron recognized.
Patrick, of course, was still a complete mystery. Nothing so far had given Byron any indication of who this guy might be.
But the photo he found from the time they would have encountered each other -- that college stint in the fall of 2007 -- confirmed that the two had indeed met.
However, this led only to far more questions.
Judging by the crowd of people in the background -- all wearing a variety of costumes -- it looked like a Halloween party. Byron thought he recognized the location, although he couldn't quite place it...
Patrick -- whom Byron still did not remember, but could identify from the slew of other photos he'd just flipped through -- stood front and centre, holding an Old Fashioned out toward the camera and dressed in what appeared to be a head-to-toe costume of Mad Men's Don Draper.
What shocked Byron like a bolt of electricity, however, was that he himself (and there was no mistaking it) was also front and centre of the photo.
Alarm and confusion overtook Byron -- not because he was in the photo, but because of the state the photo showed him to be in. With absolutely zero memory of ever having done anything like it whatsoever, the proof was in the pudding: dressed in a diametric opposite to Patrick's hat-to-shoe 1950's business suit, Byron was loudly and proudly baring it all by wearing nothing more than a far-too-tight, florescent green Borat mankini.
The satirical film had, of course, come out in theatres almost a full year before that -- but Halloween 2007 had been the first opportunity for the much-enamoured public to dress as Sacha Baron Cohen's larger-than-life character. No doubt many others that year had worn Borat-inspired costumes -- although most of them, Byron suspected, went the route of the black wig, fake moustache, ill-fitting suit, and poorly-performed accent that marked the character for most of the movie and not the leaving-nothing-to-the-imagination mankini that Byron saw his 18-year-old self just barely squeezed into in the photo on his phone screen.
Making matters worse, Byron's "costume" (if he really could call such a minuscule piece of fabric a costume) did not seem at all to be the played-for-laughs get-up from the big screen. There were no sunglasses, wig, or fake moustache, nor was the body to which the garment was clinging the slightly out-of-shape average one that made Borat's donning of the swimwear tongue-and-cheek. Aside from the fact that Byron's face was undisguised -- meaning, on the one hand, people would likely swoon when seeing how smoulderingly handsome he looked in the photo and, on the other, that people who knew him would likely never be able to take him seriously again, given how immediately recognizable he was in the picture -- the physique which that lycra tightly hugged was not a comical one in the least. With thick biceps giving him an imposing figure beyond what his height and broad shoulders already provided, plump pectorals filling out his freshly-shaven chest, and a tight, well-toned waist giving his torso a strong V shape, the body that the 18-year-old Byron had squeezed into that florescent green fabric looked like it belonged on the set of a Playgirl photoshoot instead of some random college party.
But it was not just Byron's physique that gave his mankini look an altogether different connotation from Sacha Baron Cohen's. Instead, certain other elements made the photo into an especially lurid and sexually-charged image -- such that Byron was surprised no one had yet reported the photo for violating Facebook community guidelines. Where Sacha Baron Cohen likely wore a cup to prevent outright obscenity, the lycra Byron was wearing in the photo left nothing to the imagination: not only was the mankini so low-cut as to expose the full and complete entirety of his well-trimmed pubic hair (so low as to hint at the base of his dick being publicly visible), but Byron could see the outline of his well-endowed package pressing against the fabric in such detail that, even in this early-2000s-quality photo, he could clearly make out where his shaft stopped and his glans began.
While people described Borat as looking "fucked up," Byron felt hot blushes coming over his whole body when the thought occurred to him that how he looked in this photo aligned with another cognate of the f-sharp: "fuck toy." Here was a photo of what was unmistakably his 18-year-old self -- of which he had zero memory -- apparently looking and acting like little more than a piece of meat for others' eyes to eat up.
To make matters worse, judging from the wide, welcoming, and satisfied smile plastered on the face of the Byron in the photo, he also appeared to be absolutely loving what could only be described as a moment of downright indecent exposure.
The room spun around Byron as he looked up from his phone screen and a thousand thoughts raced through his mind.
What the fuck happened that Halloween?
Why the hell could he not seem to remember a single thing about it?
And -- he realized with a renewed sense of alarm coming over him -- why was his cock suddenly rock hard?
This awareness of what his body (or, at least, his dick) was doing helped to ground Byron in the moment. He closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths, trying to shake his sense of panic and think about this rationally.
He breathed in. He breathed out.
His erection -- mercifully -- started to go down.
The room stopped spinning around him.
He was safe.
He was not in that moment of public humiliation -- he was in the hardware store that he owned, in the small town community that looked up to him, in the clothes (a plaid shirt, a loose-fitting pair of stonewashed jeans, and an old pair of work boots) that made him look like a decent, respectable, hardworking man (and not the everyone-please-take-a-good-look exhibitionist in the photo).
But...
But what was the story behind the photo?
That whole fall was such a blur... But that made sense, right? Those months in college had been such a whirlwind -- moving away for school, meeting all new people, getting drunk and high off his ass taking in the full range of "extracurricular" college experiences more often than not. Halloween 2007 was certainly not the only thing from that semester that he drew a blank over.
Plus, how much could he really tell from one single photo? Maybe the moment that photo captured was a joke... Surely, he must have had a different costume -- perhaps the full wig, moustache, and ill-fitting suit for the Borat get-up -- that he stripped off for some quick shits and giggles with fellow freshmen?
And that Patrick guy, clearly he was just some friend of a friend... Maybe he just got a kick out of how cool, confident, and sophisticated he looked in his own well-tailored Don Draper suit when put in contrast to the gawk-at-my-body display Byron was putting on next to him in that moment?
That was it. That had to be it. He had been incredibly drunk and probably high out of his mind at a Halloween party, and the photo just captured an unintentionally sexualized moment of exhibitionism in an otherwise innocuous joke.
That was Byron told himself -- and what, only half-admitting it, he continued to tell himself almost like a mantra until the throbbing and raging erection that had strained at his fly as soon as he'd seen the photo finally subsided completely.
Glancing back at his phone screen, Byron spotted the photo again for only an instant. The second he saw it, he felt his dick begin to swell again and so -- in with the same instinctive, lightning-quick speed the body produces when one accidentally touches a hot surface -- a swift flick of the wrist flipped away from the photo and back to Patrick's main profile.
Byron stared for a moment at the screen in front of him, finding that he was deeply torn on how to proceed.
He still had absolutely no idea who this "Patrick O'Neill" was.
And the photo of the two of them together had just sent him into a full-blown panic attack.
He should just let this guy remain a stranger and leave the past in the past.
Clearly, he should just click "Ignore"...
And yet...
And yet, there was something about this that he couldn't let go.
Byron had to know more. He had to find out what happened that night.
Or, at least, that's what Byron told himself as he clicked "Accept" on Patrick's Friend Request. What he was unwilling to admit was that it was far more than curiosity that was pulling him in. While Byron himself would no doubt deny it, the photo had awoken something inside of him -- not a memory, of course, but a hunger that now would not stop gnawing at him until it was fed.
"Byron, hey! Long time no see."
Mere seconds after Byron clicked "Accept" -- straining credulity for how quickly it happened -- a Messenger chat from Patrick popped up on his phone screen.
Navigating to the app, Byron felt butterflies in his stomach.
What was this?
Alarm? Apprehension? Anxiety?
No, that wasn't it...
This fluttering of the heart, sweating of the palms, hot flashes coming all over him... It was...
Nervous excitement?
But why?
Pushing the confusing feeling aside and directing his attention to the task at hand, Byron focused on the aim he'd told himself he'd had in accepting Patrick's Friend Request: finding out what the story was here. Perhaps he could just leave this whole thing behind if he could just figure out who the hell Patrick even was.
"LOL yeah, I guess it's been since college, right?" Byron typed, trying to play it cool.
"Yeah, time sure flies," Patrick replied, his small-talk truism giving Byron nothing.
Byron grumbled at the vague response, but was undeterred. Still trying to play it cool, he nudged a little further towards seeing what he could find out about who this guy was (or, more properly, who Bryon was to him): "Any reason you decided to look me up?"
Not missing a beat, Patrick almost instantly replied: "Just saw the new Borat trailer ;-)"
Shit.
Byron's stomach sank. That photo of Byron proudly strutting his stuff in a far-too-tight mankini must have been more than just a brief gag if the principal thing that made Patrick think of him was Borat-related.
He started trying to formulate a response -- again, attempting to think of some way to get the details without coming out and saying, "I think I must have goddamn amnesia, can you tell me why the hell I look like a fuck toy in a photo from 13 years ago?" -- when another message from Patrick appeared.
"You want to reconnect."
That was a question that Patrick had just forgotten to end with correct punctuation, right? It had to be... Who would just make a statement instructing someone else what it is that they want?
However, strangely -- regardless as to whether it was a question or not -- Byron found that only one thought was coming to mind in response.
"I want to reconnect," Byron typed almost automatically.
"You want me to come to your party tomorrow," Patrick immediately followed up.
Again, no question mark.
Again, no other thoughts but this:
"I want you to come to my party tomorrow," Byron wrote in reply.
As soon as he'd typed it, Byron looked up from his phone in confusion.
What party? He wasn't throwing a Halloween party. Aside from crowds increasingly being a no-go in 2020, there was a bigger reason why he would never do such a thing: Byron hated Halloween. He'd hated it ever since...
Since...
Looking back down to his phone screen, Byron thought to correct himself. He would just have to tell Patrick that they'd have to connect some other way. That his party was... cancelled? Something like that.
Instead, he saw Patrick's message and fell further down the rabbit hole:
"Great. You want everyone to be there at 9:00."
"I want everyone to be there at 9:00," Byron messaged in response before he realizing what he'd done.
"Cool, see you then ;-)" Patrick replied.
"Later," a dazed Byron wrote, the room starting to spin around him again.
What the hell was going on?
It felt like there were two Byrons. One who was thinking about this rationally and one who seemed compulsively driven towards something else.
The rational Byron was wracking his brain trying to figure out why on earth he had he just invited someone he didn't know to a party he wasn't having.
The compulsively-driven Byron was going through a mental Rolodex of people to invite and coming up with a mental inventory of what he'd need to make his Halloween party a success.
Thankfully, the rational Byron did what he needed to do to make the compulsively-driven Byron happy: he rationalized.
This was his first Halloween since his separation from Sheila, so why shouldn't he throw a party? It was time to get back out there, to mingle and enjoy being single, right?
And he owned a fucking hardware store. He had everything he needed right here to get a party ready last-minute. They sold party supplies, decorations... Hell, they even sold outdoor heaters that would allow him to make this a pandemic-compliant party, right?
And he was holding the only thing he really needed to make this party happen -- a phone that would allow him, with just a few clicks and swipes, to invite everyone he knew to his place tomorrow night -- right?
Right.
He wanted to do this. He wanted to have a Halloween party tomorrow night. He wanted everyone to be there. He wanted Patrick to see him...
Err, he wanted to see Patrick. That was it.
However, getting up from his desk chair and making his way towards the seasonal aisle of his store, it was clear that Byron had no idea what kind of Halloween he was in for. After all, Byron still mistakenly thought he needed to pick up his own costume for this party.
"Hey, Byron," the gruff-looking, stubble-faced, pudgy man tidying up a shelf of battery-powered jack-o'-lanterns said casually. "Heading home?"
"Oh, hey, Warren," Byron replied, just noticing the other man for the first time (having been lost in thought, still somewhat dazed while simultaneously trying to plan a party in his mind). "Not yet."
Warren was probably best described as a "family friend" -- an odd appellation, considering that he was technically Byron's employee since he'd taken over the store from his parents. By all rights, the two should be friends: they were the same age, worked in the same place, had in fact been pretty close when they'd been in high school together.
Hell, maybe Warren thought they were friends? Byron didn't really know... Like so many other things in his life, going for drinks with the guys (Warren sometimes included) felt more and more like he was just going through the motions...
"You looking for something in particular?" Warren asked, turning his attention away from the shelves to see what had brought Byron to the seasonal aisle.
"I, uh... I'm throwing a Halloween party."
A single eyebrow shot up as Warren tilted his head. "I thought you hated Halloween?"
"Well..."
Byron went back over his rationalizations in his mind. This wasn't happening just because Patrick told him it was happening -- that would be ridiculous. No, it was because his house was too empty since Sheila left. It was because he was single and ready to mingle. It was because he had the space and access to the supplies to put on the perfect Halloween bash for 2020.
"I figured it was time for a change," Byron finally said, volunteering the best reason he could think of.
Warren just gave a half-shrug, apparently finding Byron's response adequate enough.
"So, umm... I'll see you there?" Byron asked, feeling a nervous excitement (equal parts anxious dread and eager anticipation) swelling inside of him when he thought about the coming party.
"Wouldn't miss it," a half-distracted Warren replied as he returned his attention to the shelves in front of him.
Looking now to the shelves himself, Byron's eyes landed on a few packaged costumes they had hanging on a rack. Scanning the pirate and vampire get-ups, Byron tried to push a thought out of his mind: Halloween 2007.
That photo was...
It was humiliating. The way he stood there proudly with almost every inch of his meaty physique not just visible, but asking to be looked at... the pouch that "covered" his package only serving to accentuate its details for anyone who wanted to take a gander... the way he stood so close to another man -- one who was dressed like a cool, confident, sophisticated businessman of the 50s while Byron was standing right next to him looking like an eager fuck toy.
That... that wasn't him. He was just a regular, decent, stand-up guy who had a crazy night in college.
Nevertheless, now picking up the vampire costume (the coverage of full pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and a cape to boot ought to help him keep "mankini Byron" out of his mind), Byron had no idea whatsoever that the photos that were about to come out of Halloween 2020 were going to make it a million times harder for him to convince anyone (himself included) that he wasn't exactly what the 2007 photo revealed him to be.
Stay tuned for chapter 2.
In the meantime, check out my other stories on Nifty:
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"Out of Sight": https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/out-of-sight/
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"AJ Goes to Art School": https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/aj-goes-to-art-school/
Reader feedback welcome: corey_grant@gmx.com