“Is this really okay…?” Stephanie asked timidly, hesitating outside the panel room for Fetish 101. In stark contrast to the hallway connecting the gaming rooms, the hall here was sparsely populated.
“Okay? S’way better than okay,” Kelly retorted. “It’s educational. You want—no, you need to know more about sexy stuff, right?”
“N-no, I didn’t mean that,” Stephanie fidgeted. “I mean, you promised Brian that we wouldn’t…”
“I know what I promised,” Kelly declared, flashing her wicked smile again. “C’mon, let’s see how it looks.” She tugged the pink-haired girl closer towards the entrance of the panel room, where a politely smiling brunette girl wearing an AnimeCon staff T-shirt was seated, very considerately pretending not to have overheard their every word.
“Hi,” the brunette staffer greeted cheerfully, nodding towards them and gesturing to indicate she’d already seen the badges they were wearing. “You can go on in, if you’d like.”
“Thank you,” Kelly smiled sweetly. “Is it okay if we take just a peek, though? My friend here, it’s her first time, and, well... she’s a little nervous.”
“Yeah, aren’t we all, our first time?” The staffer laughed. “Go ahead, take a look.”
Leaning out around the door frame, Kelly and Stephanie saw that the room was very dimly lit—many rows of chairs, mostly filled with people, were divided neatly by a central aisle directly in from the doors. The only active bank of lights was at the far side of the room all the seats faced, illuminating a long table where the panel’s lone host, a rather full-figured goth girl sporting dozens of tattoos, was speaking excitedly into a microphone.
“...To make sure they have experience and know what they’re doing, because a lot of the things people see and want to try out right away are so dangerous for beginners,” a young woman’s voice explained, presumably the host of the panel. “Paddling and spanking, for instance! It can be very fun, for both partners, but it’s sooo dangerous if done incorrectly! You’re have to focus your swings only on the buttocks and upper thighs, and never, ever strike as high as the lower back or kidneys! And of course, hitting harder doesn’t mean you’re hitting better!
“Oh gawd, you guys, I could go on about just the topic spanking alone for hours,” the host let out a wistful sigh. “I love getting a good spanking. But, again, it’s another one of those things that can be dangerous for beginners! For one, I’m going to say that if you’re just starting out, you absolutely need to use your hands! And not a paddle or a flog. Yeah, that’s right ladies and gentleman, I’m sayin’ you’ve gotta be hands-on.” There was only a slight murmur of response from the crowd.
“When you’re using your hands you’re always going to have more control on where and how hard your strikes are landing! Another thing to consider, is that your hand is going to be more delicate and sensitive than that meaty tissue of your partner’s buttocks and upper thighs—that’s gonna be your feedback, and that’s sooo important! Your hand is going to start seriously hurting well before they will, which’ll best limit both how hard you’re spanking, and how long you’re spanking for!”
The silhouette of a hand rose in the audience.
“Yes, you, sweet thing there in the cute hoodie, did you have a question?”
“I really don’t understand the spanking thing, at all,” A girl’s voice admitted, barely audible across the room. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Oh, gawd, like I said, I could go on forever about why I love it, and there’s so many factors! Yes, it can hurt, but it’s so much more than that!” The host explained gleefully. “It does hurt, yeah. Sorta. It does and it doesn’t? It can hurt, but in a really good way."
Seems like just the kind of lessons Stephanie really needs, Kelly decided with a smirk, and she stepped out from her peeking position to stand clearly visible in the open doorway.
“Oh, hi!” the host called towards them eagerly, her bassy voice booming through the room’s speakers. “Come on in, don’t be shy! I love your dress!” It seemed like most of the audience turned to look at them standing in the doorway, although their faces and expressions couldn’t be made out.
“We would love to join you,” Kelly called, raising her tone in a skilled public speaking voice that she could tell surprised Stephanie. Kelly was able to project her voice so that everyone in the large room could easily hear her, while it still sounded almost the same as her normal manner of speech. “But... we made a promise—what were my words again, Stephanie?”
“Ah, uh…!” Startled at suddenly being put on the spot, Stephanie froze up, paling even further, and stared fearfully at the entire room full of people now looking expectantly at them.
“Yes, that was it; I so solemnly vowed that we wouldn’t set even one foot on the floor within this room,” Kelly declared.
“Aw, why would you do that?” the hostess pouted playfully. “We don’t bite—much.” A handful of obligatory chuckles sounded throughout the room.
“This is the panel room for fetish, though, right?” Kelly asked, a mischievous undercurrent building in her tone. “Steph… my shoes, please.” After an astonished second, Stephanie obediently dropped down to a knee and began unbuckling Kelly’s glossy black mary janes for her.
“Yes, that’s right. This is Fetish 101,” the tattooed girl across the room responded proudly into her microphone. It seemed like she was having more fun being able to exchange banter with an unexpected guest. Maybe her audience hasn’t been very enthusiastic?
“Might there be any... foot fetishists in attendance today?” With Stephanie’s help, Kelly stepped out of her shoe and extended her foot in the air, wiggling and curling the toes within her lace stocking theatrically. There was a murmur in the seated crowd, and she was able to distinctly make out at least one oh, hell yeah, followed by scattered laughter.
“Ooh, there we go! Foot fetishists? Anyone?” The host cooed encouragingly, pointing out raised hands in the audience as she saw them. “There we have one, two, three… show of hands, people, do we have anyone who appreciates some sexy feet with us here? Four, five... c’mon now, don’t be shy!”
“You see,” Kelly continued on in her raised voice, effortlessly sensual and charismatic, “we only promised that we wouldn’t dirty our feet on the floor, here… I wonder if any of you would be willing to... help us inside?” The occupants of the Fetish 101 panel reacted more loudly to this, and she immediately saw several of them standing up and shimmying past those still seated to make their way towards the center aisle.
The first to approach, a college-aged guy with a shaved head, stubbled face and a leery grin, dashed right up to them with his open hands held outstretched, palms up. Though he was likely just offering to carry one of them inside to a seat, Stephanie ducked slightly behind Kelly with a frightened squeak. Oh no, friend. Not THAT kind of help…
Kelly froze him in place with a mere gesture, simply by pointing her finger, and then the stunned guy watched as she jerked her fingertip down to point to the ground at her feet, as though she were training a dog. There was a flash of surprise on his grinning face and a moment’s hesitation—and the man fell to the floor as though he’d been forcibly struck down.
Then Kelly entered the room, her stocking-clad foot stepping up squarely onto the guy’s back… not once touching the carpeted floor inside.
“Oh my God,” they heard the stunned panel’s hostess exclaim throughout the speakers.
“Well?” Kelly turned to face Stephanie and the bewildered staffer beside her at the door. With a pout, she twisted her foot on the guy’s back. “Aren’t you coming inside as well, little one?”
“Hnnnng,” the man beneath her foot let out a noise, but it was difficult to discern whether it was from pleasure or pain.
In a scramble, two of the others who’d stood and made their way to the aisle clambered onto the ground as well, forming a human path, and the Fetish 101 room filled with lively hollers of laughter and encouragement. Others were already rising out of their seats.
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“Come along now, Steph,” Kelly instructed, taking another graceful step, this time first caressing the guy’s cheek with the edge of her foot before pressing it down near his shoulder, mercilessly pinning him. “Do be kind enough to take off your boots, though. You have to remember... these things were people once.”
Stephanie watched on with a mixture of fascination and horror as her friend continued deeper into the room, transferring her weight slowly from one all-too-willing victim to the next so that she wouldn’t wobble. With trembling hands, Stephanie fumbled across the hem of her dress to the zipper of her thigh-high boot.
“Th-this… this can’t be happening…”
“Uh, here,” the brunette staffer posted at the door offered with a grin, and the girl crouched beside Stephanie to help her out of her boots.
“Ah, sorry, th-th-thank you,” Stephanie stammered out, casting another frightened look after Kelly, who’d already made her way several steps further… without technically breaking her promise to Brian.
Taking a deep breath, Stephanie felt the cool air on her legs, now bare the whole way up to the short hem of her pink and red gijinka dress… and gingerly took her first step following after Kelly. Stepping onto another human being. For Stephanie, this was a first.
“Oh-God-yessss!” The guy hissed gleefully, and with a yelp Stephanie hopped past him, landing with both feet on the next fellow and knocking the wind out of him.
“S-sorry,” Stephanie cried, planting her small feet, which were adorned with only a cute pair of ankle socks, on each following person as quickly as she could manage. “Sorry, sorry!” To her dismay, several of them down the line were laying face-up, and she didn’t have the layers of petticoat and bloomers Kelly did to obstruct their view.
Weebs sure are susceptible to mob mentality, Kelly decided as she surveyed the growing walkway of ready volunteers. The first several bodies had been strewn about haphazardly like a path of carnage, but beyond that the aisle of panel-goers laying down to become her living carpet had a queer semblance of order to it. Several dozen men and at least one young woman had laid themselves down in a neat row extending all the way past the chairs and towards the hostess’s table.
I’d thought I’d have a little fun, maybe make a little scene, and get me and Steph to a couple of the chairs... but if they want to take us right up to center stage, well, who am I to stop them? Kelly took care to take small, even steps to ensure she gave everyone equal attention, and squeezed her toes, kneaded with the ball of her foot, or gently rubbed the body beneath her with her every stride. The volume and excitement within the room was rising, most of the attendees had risen out of their seats to get a better look, and the lights from different cell-phones and cameras were shining across the now irregular aisle floor as the panel’s hostess chattered excitedly over it all.
“Okay… wow. Just wow. This is how you make an entrance, hah ha ha—aaa! This is Fetish 101, everyone! Whoooo! Can somebody get her a microphone? Kevin? Get that gal a microphone,” View of their hostess became clearer as Kelly crossed the room—she was a plus-sized woman in her late twenties, showing off intricate sleeve tattoos, as well as skeletal hands tattooed upon the swell of exposed cleavage above her corset. She had teased-out black hair and, in Kelly’s opinion, wore a little bit too much makeup.
As the girls finished picking their way across the room, a steampunk cosplayer shook off his stovepipe hat and clambered down onto his hands and knees, forming human stairs up to the panel’s booth. A mustached nerd on one side of Kelly acted out the part of a gentleman and steadied her hands, while a mousy-looking girl in a cat-eared hat kept pace with them, training her phone steadily on the spectacle.
Grandly ascending to stand atop the panel’s table, a scrawny guy wearing a staff T-shirt passed a microphone up to Kelly. Simply listening through the cacophony of noises in the room and swiping her fingernail across the grille of the mic told her that it was already live—only amateurs did tap-checks, and Kelly had dated a musician.
The table within the panel room was wide and sturdy, with more than enough room for both of them to stand on one side without obstructing the host. In the middle of the table was an assortment of rope, leashes, handcuffs, restraints, and other not-so-innocent toys on display.
“Hello, yes!” the host seated right there was speaking again, the chubby girl using a bombastic, energetic voice, as though emulating a radio host. “I’m Chrissy-Cat, and this is Fetish 101! And who might you be?”
Before replying, Kelly carefully lowered the microphone and leaned down to help Stephanie up onto the table, cupping her hand near the pink-haired girl’s ear so that she could privately confer with her for a moment.
“You’re book-smart, right, Steph?” Kelly asked in a whisper, holding her face close beside Stephanie’s to ensure she could still be heard. “I’m gonna pass you the mic in a bit, think up some... famous quote or something, somethin’ bout walking proud or standing above others, that can relate to our situation coming in here, okay? Don’t get nervous or panic, or anything, because I’m right here. All you need is a good quote to use. ‘Kay?”
Stephanie nodded her head in a quick jerk, looking shell-shocked.
“Hello, Chrissy,” Kelly finally purred into the microphone, and she heard cries of approval from the audience. Her voice was soft and husky, spoken at a languidly-measured pace that made one hang on every word.
“Please, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Kelly. Kelly Killy,” she breathed in her slow, sexy voice. Who’d’ve thought I’d ever have another chance to use my stage name? “Someone very dear to me had us swear not to set a foot in here—I have many of you to thank—those who’ve laid down their very bodies to protect my promise. Can we have a small round of applause for their... sacrifice?” The resulting cheers and applause roared throughout the panel room once again—she was no stranger to hyping up a crowd—although this time the Ravaged Cassettes weren’t about to perform.
“And this is my pet—Miss Stephanie. A few words, lover?” Kelly held out the microphone carefully, letting the head hover just inches before the pink-haired girls lips.
“B-being a poor people, and, having only your dreams,” Stephanie called into the offered mic, her voice ringing out clear and rather adorable, “you’ve spread your dreams out beneath our feet! And so, we do tread carefully, because… we’re treading on your dreams!” Her only stutter hadn’t been very noticeable, surprisingly, and Kelly was impressed as well with her choice of words. The seated audience broke out into cheers and clapping.
“Exactly so—well spoken, my darling,” Kelly agreed, rewarding Stephanie with a loving pat on the head. Where’d she pull the quote from? That was pretty decent.
“Well, thank you both so much for stopping by!” Chrissy said, looking genuinely pleased. “You’ve come to the right place. I kept trying to get my friends up here to help host the panel with me, because panels work sooo much better as a cross-talk, but they all wimped out on me at the last minute! Yeah, even you, Kevin!” The staffer who’d passed Kelly a microphone was already slinking away back to the front row of seats, waving her off embarrassedly.
“Well, we’re very pleased to be here, thank you.” Seizing the opportunity, Kelly turned upon the tabletop with a graceful sweep of her Calamity Queen dress to regard the crowd of convention attendees, who were still settling back into their seats. She maintained the frigid gravitas of an untouchable being, with her hauntingly beautiful face and a smile colder than the dark reaches of space. By contrast, the endearingly cute Stephanie clinging to her side was frozen stiff with fright. “Now that we’re here, though… well, I heard there would be rope?”
“Ah, yes,” Chrissy jumped back in, gesturing with a legal pad of scribbled planning, “We were just getting through the safety talk, and our questions, and then Amanda and Bill here agreed to do our shibari demonstration.”
“Shibari...” Kelly echoed thoughtfully, sounding the word out. “Sounds delicious.” She’d meant to imply she’d mistaken the word for a kind of Japanese food, but from the audience’s enthusiastic response, the joke worked just as well as euphemism.
“Amanda? Bill?” Chrissy prompted.
At that, a young couple from the first row stood up. The thin college-aged guy—presumably Bill, wore glasses and had a mop of dirty blond hair and short beard of the same color, while Amanda was a giddy-looking dark-haired girl in her twenties. Her large, round brown eyes were adorned with exaggerated winged eyeliner drawn on in a too-large feline flick. There was a hearty round of applause and some jeers at the sight of them. Still, not bad, for a geek couple, I suppose.
“I’m not a fan of Bills, myself,” Kelly commented thoughtlessly into her microphone. “Always struggling to pay them off, and yet they just keep coming! How about you, Amanda, how do you like... being Billed?”
Amanda hid her face into Bill’s shoulder in laughter and embarrassment, and the Fetish 101 crowd went wild again. It really wasn’t THAT funny, Kelly thought to herself as she arched an eyebrow at the panel’s audience. It’s just some weak wordplay, that I’m sure everyone named Bill has suffered through dozens of times before already. You guys are all just a little too eager to be pleased?
“Alright everyone,” Chrissy announced, “Bill’s going to start the demo in a sec—we couldn’t get the projector this year, the damned cosmetics panel is using it—but if anyone wants the step-by-step on what he’s doing, there’s a website I have printed out on my pamphlets here!” Setting down her microphone with a thump that echoed throughout the speakers, Chrissy helped pass a large plastic bag of hemp rope from beside them on the table to Bill.
The geek couple took position below them, in front of the table, and Amanda helpfully held her arms out while Bill began measuring out lengths of the corded rope to use.
“It looks like our friends here may take a few moments,” Kelly pointed out, “and, by chance, just before we intruded, Miss Stephanie and I may have overheard you articulating the finer points of… spanking.” A chilling, sinister smile spread softly across her features, and she drew back a step on the table, letting her hands slip down Stephanie’s sides.
“I don’t suppose, while they’re preparing, that any of you would be interested in a live demonstration of that... would you?”
“That’s an awesome idea!” Chrissy crowed. She stood from her chair behind the panel-room’s table and bounced over to the side where Kelly and Stephanie stood. For a full minute, she had Kelly and Stephanie lean down towards her in a huddle of whispers, while their audience became an indistinct hush of murmurs and talk themselves.