Serving the Gentlemen’s Club
Stranger on the Train
Ron dashed through the platform and jumped onto the last train out, just in time for him to squeeze right in as the doors closed behind him. It was only Tuesday, but he felt like it has already been a long week. Ron had just been promoted to Regional Director two months ago and the workload has just about doubled since then, with more on the way. But all this hard work was well worth it; he negotiated a good deal with his bosses that should set him on a smooth course for a comfortable early retirement. With his 50th birthday coming up soon, Ron has set his target to retire a few years before hitting 60. Life is looking good for the senior executive: a well-paying job, a nice big house in a fine neighbourhood, a lovely wife of 30 years and a son in his last year in university. Ron keeps himself in good shape as well, he plays golf every weekend and is also an avid cyclist, giving him a toned body that fits handsomely with his 6-foot frame and nicely cropped dark blond hair.
Even though it was already getting close to 10 PM, being the last train of the day out to the outer suburbs, lots of late-night commuters like Ron piled in as their last chance to head home, or risk being stranded in the city for the night or taking the long and tiresome bus option. While there was not a crush load, still most of the seats were occupied. Finally, Ron managed to find some seats left in the last carriage. He spotted an empty row of two seats facing the rear, all the way at the very back of the train car. They certainly were not the best seats around: they were facing a wall with no window, so they looked rather crammed. But it didn’t matter to Ron, he was exhausted from the day and he was not going to stand for his 90-minute journey all the way to the last stop. So he quickened his pace and parked himself onto the inner seat before anyone else could grab it.
Right after Ron has settled into his seat, a young man took up the seat to his left. He came and sat down in a calm and reserved manner, but his movements were swift and composed. The executive peeked over briefly and noticed the young man wearing a black hoodie, jeans and sneakers. With the hood over his head, Ron couldn’t clearly see the man’s face at first, but the young man then briefly looked over his way as well and he could see a clean-shaven brown-haired man perhaps in his 20s. The young man has his earphones on, though Ron noticed he seemed to look slightly out of it. His face looked stone cold devoid of expression, his eyes seemed a bit unfocused but also nervously avoiding Ron’s eyes. “Could he be drunk or high on something?” Ron thought to himself. Not wanting to cause potential trouble on a crowded train, the executive shrugged off the boy’s strangeness and kept to his own. But that was not before the young man crossed his legs and rested his large left foot on his right knee; the movement created a slight air flow in the tight seating compartment and Ron couldn’t help but instinctively winced at the pungent odour from the young man’s foot. Being typically a clean and tidy person, Ron was certainly not accustomed to such strong body odour. He slowly backed his head away towards the wall as far as he could lean to try and avoid catching another whiff of the boy’s sweaty feet. The boy was now staring straight ahead in his seat with his hood and earphones still on, so Ron was hoping the kid didn’t notice his body shifting so as not to seem rude.
As the train accelerated steadily down the tracks, Ron was finally able to settle in and relax for the rest of his journey. Exhaustion quickly caught up to him, and with the steady rocking motion and sound of the train rolling on, the businessman slowly drifted off to a deep slumber. So deep that he didn’t notice the young man next to him pulling out one of his earphones from his left ear and gently plugged it into Ron’s left ear...
Ron jolted awake suddenly when he felt a plucking sensation in his left ear. For a moment, he felt disoriented and his head felt like a throbbing mush; “must be the extra tiredness,” he thought to himself. He slowly came back to his senses when he realized the train was no longer moving and the young man next to him had just left his seat swiftly to join the rest of the passengers on their way out. He then looked outside and finally noticed that they have arrived at the terminal station. Ron quickly gathered his stuff and made his way out onto the station platform, and towards the parking lot for his car. On his way out of the station, Ron caught the sight from afar of the young man on the train again as he was walking onto a bus. The executive never even saw the guy’s face clearly or exchanged a word, but yet for some reason he felt a strange sense of connection with the young man. He didn’t give it too much thought; his head was still buzzing and he really just wanted to get home.
As Ron sat in his car, he absentmindedly pulled out his phone, opened the browser and typed in a link. It opened onto a simple webpage with a dark background and simply with a line that says: “Serving the Gentlemen’s Club and its members”. Below that line there is a graphic of a male leather dress shoe with the word “Submit” right beneath it. Without any moment of hesitation or thought, Ron’s finger tapped on the shoe/submit button on the screen and an app immediately started downloading onto his phone. Once the app was installed, the webpage closed itself and the program started on its own. Ron put on his bluetooth earpiece and some weird sound came through: a mix of high-pitched white noise and static in a distinct pattern. Before he could even process the sound, his conscious mind was already captured by the hypnotic tone and he had fallen into a trance. In fact, the sound sequence was similar to what the young man played in Ron’s ear during the train ride, though he wouldn’t know about it, just like now.
The app played a series of subliminal setup questions in between the white noise sequence in order to customize the program to Ron’s “needs”, to which the executive dutifully answered under the hypnotic influence. After about 10 minutes, the setup process was complete and the app shut itself off, leaving only an icon “GC” on the desktop screen. Ron awoke with a start once again and realized that he now sat alone in the deserted parking lot of the train station. He deduced that he must have fallen asleep again as he sat in his car (which would have seemed odd to Ron normally, but the program’s initial conditioning told him to ignore and downplay the oddness of it and rationalize his actions). He glanced at the time and it was already getting close to midnight, so no wonder. He gathered up his last bit of energy and quickly drove home before his wife starts getting worried as well.
The next day, Ron went about his morning as every other day. He caught his usual train to the city and found a seat hoping to catch some extra sleep. Once he has settled in his seat, he automatically tapped on the “GC” icon on his phone without thinking and the app loaded up again. With his bluetooth already on, the program immediately blasted his ear with white noise once again. It was very subtle, but if one would look closely into Ron’s eyes, they would notice his eyes glazing over and his body slowly relaxing and slumping into his seat. By the time the train left the station, the executive had already fallen into a deep sleep at the command of the programming. The conditioning would carry on for the entire duration of the trip. Ron would be brought back to his senses just before arrival and forget about it. He would carry on as normal for the rest of his day, until his return home, where he would subconsciously run the conditioning program again on the ride back.
And so it went on for about a month, day in day out, every working day Ron had been unwittingly programmed to reprogram his mind during his commute. There was not much difference during the first week. However, towards the end of the second week, a subtle nagging feeling started creeping into Ron’s mind. It was like an elusive “itch” inside that he couldn’t really put a finger on. He tried to brush it off as stress at first, but as he moved onto the third week, the feeling continued to grow and it bothered him more and more until it was constantly preoccupying his mind. By the end of that week, that “itch” had materialized itself into a craving, an ingrained desire for “something”...of which Ron could not figure out what it is. Another week went by, the craving only increased further with the daily conditioning, and it was starting to take its toll on Ron. He was becoming a stressed out pack of nerves by the end of the fourth week. The “craving” was on his mind day and night, driving him crazy like an addict and it was also starting to affect his normal life, making him stressed out and antsy all the time. He was becoming impatient with others at work and he tried to avoid his wife and son because he was constantly frustrated and didn’t want to talk about it. His head felt like spinning in overdrive constantly, exhausting the executive mentally. But the worse was he doesn’t even know what he was suddenly becoming addicted to, and when someone tried to ask him about his odd behaviours, he simply tells them that it was just work stress. Yet everyday on his train rides, Ron unconsciously continued to turn on the mind control app and subject himself to further deepening of his conditioning.
A couple more days went by, and then one evening, on his way home after yet another frustrating day blurred by the now intense “itch” preoccupying his mind all day, Ron noticed the same young man in the hoodie from that other night several weeks ago sitting down next to him. In his state of mind, the exhausted executive normally wouldn’t have bothered to care who sat next to him, but for some reason, it almost felt as if his mind specifically nudged him about the presence of the quiet strange young man (whom he had only saw once about a month ago) as if he should be aware of something. However, nothing more happened between the two. The young man just sat quietly, almost robotically, listening to his earphones, seemingly not really acknowledging Ron’s presence. Ron similarly carried on with his daily subconscious ritual of listening to his mind control app and knocked himself out just as the train began pulling out of the station.
However, tonight, something changed. Ron’s programming stopped before the end of the journey and he was brought back to reality about two stops before the end of the line. As he shuffled groggily in his seat from his deep slumber, something enticing caught his senses. A strange odour floated into Ron’s nostrils and caused a pleasant feeling to his brain. Not just any regular pleasant comfort, but an intense sense of relief. He has found it! For weeks, the distressed businessman was desperately trying to find the source to remedy that unbearable crave inside him, and this smell invading his nose right now was that magical potion he had been looking for all along! Ron felt as though a refreshing wave of water washed through him, splashing away all of that pent up itch and frustration inside with every breath that he could catch of this magical smell.
Eyes still closed, and lost in this sudden euphoric joy of relief, Ron’s body instinctively tried to follow the odour to its source. He lifted his head and started slowly leaning forward and then towards the seat next to him. The smell was definitely getting stronger, but at the same time strangely familiar. It was then that his conscious mind was finally coming back to full capacity to realize that he was still on his commuter train ride, and so he quickly opened his eyes in self-awareness hoping he wasn’t embarrassing himself in front of others. At the same time, he’d like to find out what exactly was the source of this “curing smell”. However, Ron was in total shock, and disgust, when he saw what was in front of him.
It was the young man’s foot.
Like the first time they met, the young man’s foot was crossed and resting on his other leg. The only difference this time was that he had taken off his sneaker and his white ankle socked foot was on full display to Ron. Even from the look of it one could tell the foot was sweaty: the sock was moist with sweat and moulded perfectly to the foot and the sole of it showed clear imprints of the toes with some sweat and dirt stains. Not to mention the smell, this time free of the shoe’s containment, enveloped the air around the two men with that unmistakable stench of foot perspiration.
The businessman jumped back and recoiled in his seat in shock and disgust, instinctively covering his nose as the natural response to his discovery. No wonder the smell seemed a bit familiar, he thought, and recalled the last time this guy sat next to him with his feet up and Ron winced at the smell of it. But then how come the smell was giving him a pleasant soothing feeling this time? How could that even be right?! However, even as his mind struggled on it, he found his body instinctively yearning for another whiff of that relieving foot smell again to ease of his nagging craving inside. It took him a greater effort this time to hold himself back in his seat from wanting to plunge his face onto that nasty sweaty foot.
He glanced over to the young man, who continued to sit calmly in his seat, his face still completely passive and seemingly not acknowledging about what’s going on with his seatmate. Ron was confused: does this kid know about what’s happening with him? Was he playing some tricks on him? But how could it be, how could he make another person suddenly crave for something that disgusts him? Ron wanted to confront the young man with all these questions, but somehow he couldn’t manage to take action or speak up.
While he was still lost in his confusion and mental struggles, Ron didn’t realize that the train had pulled into the terminal station. Before he could jump out of his thoughts, the young man had already put back on his shoe and made his way to the door in a swift movement before all the other passengers piled into the aisle. By the time Ron realized, he was already blocked by the crowd and had lost track of the guy when he finally made it outside the station.