Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2020 03:49:38 +0100
From: corey_grant@gmx.com
Subject: The Friend Request

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.

--

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:

- "Out of Sight":
https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/out-of-sight/

- "AJ Goes to Art School":
https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/aj-goes-to-art-school/

---

Reader feedback welcome: corey_grant@gmx.com