Reluctance

"You're welcome," he said, and then he stopped. His voice was strange. It was high and squeaky and funny, like a duck in a cartoon. He hesitated. Then he realized it was caused by the helium in the balloon. He looked at the script again and then at Brianna and Terry.

"This was an amazing experience," he said. "Thank you so much. I'm just so tired now that it's hard for me to talk."

He looked back at Terry, and she was nodding hard and giving him the thumbs up. There, he did it. That's all he had to do. He turned and looked at Alicia and Brianna again.

"That's really an unusual voice for a man as big as you, Igor," Brianna said.

"Yes," Nora said, "he's a little sensitive about it. But I can assure you, he's no wimp."

"Of course not," Alicia said. "Well, thank you very much Irina and, of course, Igor. Brianna and I just want to tell you again, Igor, how much we enjoyed working with you, and if you ever want to be our guest again, we'd love to have you."

"Thank you, ladies," Nora said. "Igor wanted to explore a bit of exhibitionism, but as you can see, he's also concerned about concealing his identity. So we'll talk it over, and if he's interested, we'll contact you."

"We'll be wishing hard," Brianna said. "Thanks again. Goodbye everyone."

**********

After the cameras were turned off, Brianna turned to Nora and said, "I meant what I said, Irina. I don't think you and Igor are from Russia, and I don't think that's Igor's voice, but we respect your privacy. Today was a tremendous payday for us, and I think you'll be surprised at the size of Igor's bonus.

"If he ever comes back on our show, we would promote it for weeks with this video, and he'd probably make double or triple what he's getting today. So think about it, Irina. I'm sure you're a big influence on him, right?"

"Thanks," Nora said. "I'd like to get Igor to the dressing room now."

She lifted Dalton up and held him tightly as she began walking with him. A large man stepped forward to help, and the two of them carried his limp body off as Terry followed. The man brought Dalton to a small dressing room and deposited him in a chair and left. Dalton's head was hanging down, and his eyes were closed.

"Hello, Dalton," someone whispered in his ear, and his head jerked up. It was Polly.

"No talking," Terry said. "Igor, try to stand up now. Someone is going to bring you something in a few moments, and then you are going to leave with your girlfriend, Irina, and her friend."

"Here you are, Mr. Igor," said a cute girl in jeans who entered the room. She reached out her hand which was holding a thick wad of bills with some rubber bands around it.

"You'll see it's $30,000, double what was in your agreement. The producers asked me to tell you that you are the best amateur they've ever filmed and that if you ever want to come back, they are prepared to pay you a lot more than that. Do you have some place to put this?"

"I'll put it in my purse for now," Nora said. "We need to get Igor home right away so he can recover."

The girl left, and Nora and Polly got on either side of Dalton and dragged him to Polly's car, where he passed out in the back seat. When they got to their apartment building parking lot, Polly put some smelling salts under his nose until he opened his eyes.

"We need to get you to bed, Dalton," she said, "but you have to help us. We've taken off your hood, but we couldn't change your clothes, so you're still naked below the waist. It's the middle of the day, so no one's around. Nora's checking to make sure. Then we're going to walk with her in front of you and me behind you as quickly as we can to the elevator and then to the apartment. Nora unlocked the door already."

No one saw the strange trio as they moved together through the building. When they got to the bedroom, Dalton fell into the bed and closed his eyes. He awoke briefly and saw it was dark in the room, but he made out Polly sitting in a chair by the bed. He looked up at her for a moment, and he saw concern on her face. Then he couldn't hold his head up any longer and fell asleep again.

The second time he woke up, the sun was out, and Polly wasn't there. He heard voices in the other room. As soon as he moved, he felt tremendous pain coming from below, so he just lay there looking at the ceiling. He didn't know how much time had passed before he saw Terry's face poking into the room. She walked over to him and yelled out, "He's awake. Bring a couple more chairs in here."

He lay on his back looking up and not saying anything until they rolled him on his side. Pain shot through him and he grimaced and moaned.

"I'm sorry," Polly said, "but Nora and Terry have to leave soon, and they insisted we do this now."

Lying on his side, he faced the three women in folding chairs next to the bed. He saw Nora reach into her purse.

"I want to show you that I'm giving this $30,000 to Polly," she said. "She promised us that she wouldn't give it to you."

"I'm going to explain what happened, and then Polly insists on talking to you," said Terry. "It's pretty simple. We and her other friends decided she needed an intervention.

"We sort of kidnapped her one night, brought her to my house and took turns talking to her. We tried to make her see the truth about her toxic relationship with you, but nothing worked until Nora said what she was doing wasn't helping you get well.

"We noticed she responded a little to that statement, so we went into the kitchen and strategized. After that, we focused on convincing Polly what she already knew: Unless you made the decision to change, you would only get worse.

"When you were sober, you were sorry for what you were doing to her and hated yourself. But that wasn't enough for you to change. You needed something more than guilt to shock you enough to change

"That was the breakthrough that made Polly stop resisting us. She joined in as we brainstormed ideas and finally settled on humiliation. Was there a way to degrade you to the point where you were devastated enough to change. We knew Polly's ideas were coming from love, and she knew that ours were coming from hate.

"It was my idea to put you on the fetish website. Polly was horrified, but we kept at her. We asked her if it would mortify you enough to shake you to your core. She was sure it would. In the end, her goal was to save you, so for her, the end justified the means.

"We drugged your coffee and dressed you in your submissive latex outfit, and then Nora and I managed to get your limp body over to the studios hours before anyone came to work. We put you into the restraints before the drug wore off.

"I forged a fake name onto the agreement and wrote your script for Alicia and Brianna. They have no idea my script was a hundred per cent true, except for the list of the abuses Nora, I and other friends of Polly thought up. We didn't tell Polly about our list and the script because if she knew, she would have stopped us. You know the rest."

There was silence. Dalton wasn't sure he could talk, and even if he could, he didn't know what to say. He shivered, and he felt Polly stroking his arm gently.

"Get away from him, Polly," said Nora. "You know what we agreed on. Sit down over there and tell him."

Polly didn't move.

There was silence again. He looked at Polly. She was crying.

"Come on, Polly," said Terry. "We're waiting."

"Dalton, I'm sorry," Polly said, continuing to stroke him softly. "I'm moving out this afternoon. I'll leave the bed here and the little kitchen table and chair, even though they're mine, too. There's plenty of food in the fridge, and you're already looking a lot better, so I'm sure you'll be able to get out of bed and feed yourself, even if you are in a lot of pain.

"When I attended some Al-Anon meetings with my friends, I found out that I was enabling you, not helping you. You need to make your own decision. No amount of threats or nagging will change a thing.

"That's why I went along with Terry's idea for the video. It hurt me to watch what was done to you. All my friends were watching it on the Internet and texting congratulations, but I felt horrible. I only hope the pain and humiliation brought you to the point where you make your decision. Then it will all have been worth it.

"I learned at the meetings that I have no control over your moment of decision. You may have to sink even lower before you want to change. The rent on the apartment is paid through the end of the month, which is ten days from now. You need to contact some social services and free legal clinics right away and tell them you have no money. They have ways of slowing down your eviction for a few months. If you don't do that, you'll probably be on the street in less than a month.

"I'm scared for you out there, but I checked around the neighborhood, and there's a lot of help available for you from churches and agencies that you can walk to from here. You just need to ask for it, and you'll get shelter, food and counseling.

"Some social workers told me you need to be careful when you sleep, even at a mission, because some of the people in the other bunks will be psychopaths, perverts and sadists, and when they find out you're not like them, they might attack you. Sometimes they gang rape men, but the worst ones like to mutilate their victims. A policeman I talked to said you need to buy some kind of plastic knife that the metal detectors at the institutions can't detect. A lot of the others you meet there will have them. My girlfriends reminded me you're bigger and healthier than most men, and you know how to fight, but I'm still worried about what could happen to you.

"I hope you don't have to get that low. Even if you get a job doing manual labor or fast food, you can get a room with a lock in a flophouse.

"Once you've made a decision, I know you'll make it all the way back, because when you're sober and set your mind to something, you can do anything. I know someday you'll get a good job where people appreciate your talents and pay you a lot.

"My friends don't think you'll make the decision you've avoided for nearly two years and have been trying to prepare me for the worst. I promised them to stay away from you so that I wouldn't get sucked back into enabling you anymore. Please don't try to contact me.

"I'm keeping the money you earned yesterday, but I'm not spending it. It's your money, and it's going to be invested for you.

"Seeing you lying there, I'm imagining how hurt and humiliated you must be. I have faith that you will dig yourself out, and I'll be praying for you.

"My friends and the people at Al-Anon warned me not to tell you this next part, because they said it wouldn't help you, but I have to. I'm making you a promise right now. I will wait two years, and then I will find you.

"My friends will do everything in their power to prevent me, but you know how determined I can be when I set my mind on something. No matter what they say, I swear to God I'll find you.

"When I do, I hope you're sober and are holding some kind of job and leading a normal life. If you're doing that and you've got a good woman in your life, I'll have a nice cry and deposit your money in your bank account anonymously. If you still haven't made your decision, I'll stay away from you, but I'll continue to check every couple of years.

"If you're alone and have been sober for more than a year and you're living right, I will call you, or if you have no phone, contact you in person. It won't matter to me how poor you are or what kind of job you have or where you're living. You will probably hate me so much for what we did to you that you'll hang up on me. I'll see that you get your money anyway.

"If you do agree to see me, and... no, I've already said too much. I see you want to talk, but I've promised not to listen to you. It would just make it more painful for both of us. Goodbye, Dalton."

Dalton raised his head, but she gently pushed it back down, gave him a quick kiss on the lips and rushed from the room. Nora followed her. Terry came to the bed and leaned over him.

"That's the last you'll see of her, Dalton, no matter what she fantasizes," Terry said. "Don't even think of trying to contact her if you know what's good for you."

"See these photos that Nora and I took of your naked body before we dressed you in your latex outfit? We also have a video of you being dressed. Even though only the area between your belly button and your thighs showed on the program, you have a lot of identifying marks.

"If you try to contact Polly, we're putting up an 'Igor' Facetime page with your real name and where you live. My boss thinks your video is going to go viral. Women all over the world will enjoy it. Most of them are harmless, but a few are sociopaths. If they know who you are, you'll hear from them. They may offer to pay you to do the things they saw on the video or even sicker things.

"Some of them have enough money to get what they want whether you agree or not. You saw how easy it was for us to make you helpless. If you look for Polly, I promise you we'll do our best to help them find you.

"After we persuaded Polly to take the money you earned today, we realized that was a mistake. If you had the money now, you could begin drinking yourself to death right away. That would have been the best protection for Polly."

Terry held up a business card in front of Dalton's face.

"My boss asked me to give you this. I've put cards in all your clothes and all over the apartment, so if you lose this one or throw it out, you'll find others.

"He -- my boss -- is dying to get you on camera again. Call him, and you can make a lot of money right away.

"For your second show with Alicia and Brianna, they will get to some of the other things on my list that they couldn't do because time ran out. Those things are even more painful and disgusting than what you did yesterday. I'd love to watch you experience them.

"My boss was a little nervous about the conversation with you and Nora at the end. He could tell something was fishy, and I think he suspects your release forms are fake, too."

"If you want the money, you will probably have to agree to take off your hood next time for the chat at the end, so you can smile and show you were a willing participant in what they do to you. Your session would get a huge advance promotion, and my boss thinks you might get the largest international audience ever.

"You'd still be Igor, but everyone in the world would see your face, and though they wouldn't know where you lived, it would be almost the same as if we put up an Igor page. Some of your fans would spend the money to find you.

"I think the combination of those scary women coming after you and all the money you'll be paid will help you drink yourself to death pretty fast. So call my boss, and he'll set up the next video shoot.


 "Judy should be over in a few minutes. She'll get things ready for the movers who will strip the apartment and take everything except what Polly is leaving for you. Judy is still very angry at you, so if I were you, I'd stay in bed and out of her way. Goodbye."

Dalton heard her words and felt as if something big and cold was falling on top of him. Through all his pain, he felt as though a blanket of fog, was smothering him to death. He was choking, and he couldn't breathe. He passed out.

The next thing he felt was a horrible new pain. As it woke him, he saw a hand flying at his right cheek and tried to put his hands up to stop it, but he was too slow, and it smacked him with tremendous force again.

"You bastard, Dalton," Judy said. "I saw what they did to you, but it wasn't enough. Your face was protected, so they couldn't hurt it like your ass. But I'll take care of that.

"I wanted to tattoo 'child molester' on your butt so you'd never get near a woman again, but the others said that if Polly ever found out, that would send her back to you. Terry said it would also spoil her plan because her company wouldn't hire you with a tattoo like that.

"So I'll have to settle for second best. I'll slap your face until your cheeks are as shredded as your butt is. It's going to be weeks before the pain goes away, and each time you feel it in your face or your ass, I want you to think of me and my promise that I'm making you right now.

"If I hear you've tried to call Polly or emailed her or sent a message to her through someone else or tried to reach her in any way, I'm going to find you and do this all over, and then I'll do something even worse, maybe cut off your balls and throw them into the garbage disposal. Do you hear me, Dalton?"

He heard her and tried to put his hands in front of his face, but she laughed and easily pushed them aside. She began slapping again.

For background on the stories of edrider73, see "Author Interview: edrider73" by Literoticauthor. Tag: "author interview."