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Roleplay Boards => Climax Control Roleplays => Topic started by: Metal Maniacs on January 30, 2026, 02:18:33 PM
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The camera found that familiar, dilapidated warehouse the way a bad memory found you, without warning or direction. We had seen it often enough, almost every time the ghoulish tandem of the Metal Maniacs graced our senses. But it was never truly a welcome experience.
Outside, the structure was little more than worn, eroded metal and rotting timber, its broken windows filmed over with grime and old rain. Inside, the air had been cold enough to sting the teeth and heavy with dust. A single extension cord stretched across the floor, feeding power into the back corner where a door hung crooked on its hinges. Someone had painted “Office” on it in neat black letters. The paint had been fresh, streaking down the old wood.
The office consisted of a metal desk in the center of the floor. A desk lamp threw ugly, yellow light on a stack of dusty folders arranged in a neat pile on the desk’s surface. Each file was labeled in thick marker, the words marching across the tabs like charges on an indictment:
“TRUST”
“JEALOUSY”
“POWER”
“PUBLIC VOWS”
“AGE GAP”
“OBJECTION”
“EXIT PLAN”
On the wall behind the desk hung framed degrees, printed on cheap paper and set in mismatched frames. One read “Certified Make Believe Premarital Counseling.” Two folding chairs sat across from the desk. In those chairs sat two mannequins, both dressed up. LJ wore a tux, Alexandra a dark dress that read formal from far away and funereal up close. Their heads were fixed with printed photographs of LJ’s smile and Alexandra’s emboldened gaze, attached with sharp staples and glue that was fresh enough to lightly drip down the sides of the heads.
Anthrax sat behind the desk, his posture straight, his hands folded in front of him. His face paint was chipped and deliberate, his blank and hard stare roaming everywhere but the two “patients” in front of him.
Twisted Sister stood to the side, half in shadow, half in the lamp’s glow, wearing the eager smile of a receptionist who loved her job too much and sporting the tattered remnants of what had once been a beautiful wedding dress. She held a clipboard, and on a side table beside her sat a tray with teacups made of chipped porcelain and a kettle that steamed from the spout.
Anthrax lifted his eyes to the mannequins the way a doctor looked at a chart, not a patient.
Anthrax: Good evening.
Twisted Sister: You’re right on time. That’s very responsible.
She steps forward and sets a nameplate on the desk that wasn’t there before. It reads “Doctor Anthrax, Pre-Marital Counseling”. Under it, in smaller letters, “All Patients Welcome”.
Anthrax: This is pre-marital counseling.
He gestured with two fingers to the chairs, as if they might stand and leave, as if they might argue. He continued anyway, because he didn’t need them to respond. He only needed them to be present.
Anthrax: The purpose is simple. You are about to enter a legally and socially recognized arrangement of devotion, witnessed by others, enforced by expectation.
He reached for the top folder in the stack and slid it toward himself.
Anthrax: In my experience, most people don’t prepare for marriage. They prepare for a wedding.
Twisted Sister hummed in agreement, looking at the clipboard in her hand and swaying from side to side while gazing up dreamily.
Twisted Sister: Cakes. Flowers. Seating charts. Everybody forgets the important part.
Anthrax opened the folder. The first page inside was neatly printed, with a header that read, “Kasey-Calway Evaluation - First Appointment.” Several questions were highlighted with yellow Crayola magic marker.
He turned the paper so the mannequins could see it.
Anthrax: We begin with the basics. Names. Engagement date. Proposed ceremony location. Then we move on to the questions you’ll pretend you don’t understand.
He leaned forward, the lamp throwing hard shadows under his cheekbones and making his general visage even creepier than normal.
Anthrax: Who holds power when no one is watching? Who apologizes first?
He marked a checkbox with a careful, audible scratch of ink, as though the answer had already been given.
Anthrax: Who sleeps facing the door? Who survives silence better?
He paused, eyes lifting to the stapled faces. He spoke with gentle authority, like he’s guiding them to a breakthrough.
Anthrax: If you can’t answer these questions, you are not ready. If you won’t answer these questions, you are lying. And in this office…?
He tapped the desk with his forefinger to punctuate each word.
Anthrax: We. Do. Not. LIE!!!
Twisted Sister scribbled something on her clipboard, nodding like a proud supervisor.
Twisted Sister: Rule one! No lying! Rule two! No leaving until discharged!
Anthrax doesn’t react. He simply opened the folder marked “Age Gap”.
Anthrax: Now. People like to speak about age differences as though the only thing that matters is permission. They try to reason that age is just a number.
He tilted his head, studying Alexandra’s mannequin with morbid fascination.
Anthrax: But the truth is time is leverage. Experience can feel like control. In your case, the gap is considerable. Considerable enough that people look at you two and think, hmmm! Mother and son?
Twisted Sister’s smile turned into a snarl and she spat on the floor - Anthrax turning and looking at the course of the saliva projectile on his clean, albeit worn out floor.
Twisted Sister: Cradle robber! DisGUSTING!
Anthrax: Not that we’re judging, mind you. After all, age is a form of establishment in relationships.
He turned his gaze toward the LJ mannequin.
Anthrax: Established means she has lived a life you did not witness. She has learned rules you didn’t help write. She has habits that existed before you arrived. That can be beautiful. It can also be dangerous.
Anthrax opened the file and pulled out a page titled, “Exercise One, Reciprocal Truth”.
He laid it on the desk and pointed to the first line.
Anthrax: Now, we are going to do an exercise. LJ, I want you to repeat after me. “I need reassurance.”
Twisted Sister tilted her head, lips pursed in a sympathetic little pout as Anthrax cupped a hand over his ear as if the two were listening to the repeated process that nobody else could hear.
Twisted Sister: That was vulnerable.
Anthrax: Very good! Now! Alexandra, you will repeat to LJ. “I need reassurance.”
They listened once again but this time, Twisted Sister puckered her lips in disapproval.
Twisted Sister: Well THAT didn’t sound very sincere!
Anthrax clucked his tongue.
Anthrax: Oftentimes, people Alexandra’s advanced age find it hard to admit fault or think they are in need of assistance. But now we escalate!
He flipped the page as Twisted Sister bounced in excited glee on the balls of her feet. They were HELPING! The next line is underlined twice.
Anthrax: “I will behave to avoid conflict”.
Twisted Sister’s eyes glittered as Anthrax pointed between the two mannequins.
Anthrax: Repeat it!
The room answered with silence, but Anthrax watched the mannequins’ stillness and made decisions anyway.
Anthrax: Good!
Twisted Sister: Progress!
Anthrax turned another page.
Anthrax: I will call it love when it feels like rules! Until then, it is what it is. Midlife Limerence!
Anthrax then looked directly into the camera as if to explain to us directly.
Anthrax: This refers to an intense, sometimes obsessive, passionate attraction that can peak in middle age, driving people to seek new, often younger partners to escape the monotony of their lives.
Twisted Sister leaned over into the shot to try and see who the doctor was talking to, then just as silently, slid right back out. Anthrax then reached into the “Trust” folder and produced a small padlock and a key on a plain ring. He set the lock in front of LJ’s mannequin and the key in front of Alexandra’s.
Anthrax: This is a trust exercise! In any healthy relationship, trust is mutual. But in reality, it’s negotiated.
Twisted Sister nodded enthusiastically.
Twisted Sister: Compromise!
Anthrax: No.
He tapped the padlock.
Anthrax: Leverage!
He lifted the key and turned it slowly in the light.
Anthrax: Who holds this?
Twisted Sister: She does.
Anthrax: And what does he do?
Twisted Sister: He waits!
Anthrax set the key down again and pulls out a second key, nearly identical but something about the cut of it was different. He placed it closer to LJ’s mannequin.
Anthrax: This one doesn’t fit. This is what people do when they feel powerless. They look for a key that will open the same lock. They call it “freedom”!
Twisted Sister leaned in and whispered into Anthrax’s ear. He giggled despite his professional demeanor because it tickled.
Twisted Sister: It’s cheating.
Anthrax: It’s coping.
He slid both keys back into the “Trust” folder and closed it.
Anthrax: And now, the moment our happy couple have been waiting for!
He reached for the rubber stamp on his left and pressed it into the stamp pad. The ink was old, perhaps well past the ‘best used by’ date, if inks had that sort of expiration. He inspected it with a gleeful smile on his makeup-caked face.
Anthrax: The diagnosis!
Twisted Sister straightened up by the waist, her eyes practically bugging from out of her pasty-faced white head and the red drool dripping from the front of her bottom lip.
Anthrax stamped “Approved” on the page.
Anthrax: Approved for observation!
He wrote it underneath in messy, chicken scratch handwriting.
Anthrax: Approved for pressure testing!
Another line.
Anthrax: Approved until proven false!
He set the pen down and looked up, his gaze traveling back and forth between Fake LJ and Fake Alexandra.
Anthrax: Because here is the truth about marriage. Marriage isn’t romance, it’s a structure. Not like a house. More like a cage. You are building something people will walk around inside. A life. A home.
He tilted his head.
Anthrax: And homes have doors. … And locks.
Anthrax pulled a small stack of index cards marked “homework”. He slid one card toward the mannequins.
Anthrax: I have for you both a homework assignment. And it is not optional!
He read the card aloud, slow and clear.
Anthrax: Write one truth you have never said out loud. Then practice saying ‘I object’ in the mirror! Then decide who gets the last word when the door closes.
Twisted Sister: Communication.
Anthrax: Control!
He leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the desk and his chin held in the cups of his hands. His voice dropped into something near a whisper.
Anthrax: You think you’re preparing for a celebration.
His eyes gleamed, excited and maniacal.
Anthrax: You’re preparing for pressure.
Twisted Sister stepped closer to the mannequins and smoothed Alexandra’s dress with gentle hands. As if the Alexandra mannequin was another one of her dollies.
Twisted Sister: They’ll be so happy.
Anthrax’s head tilted again, listening to something only he could hear.
Anthrax: Happiness makes people careless. And careless people need help!
Anthrax reached for the desk stamp again, pressed it into the ink and stamped the air once.
Anthrax: Session complete! Congratulations, you’re ready!
Twisted Sister stepped into frame beside him.
Twisted Sister: And if you ever need another session?
Anthrax turned his eyes to the camera.
Anthrax: My door is always open.
He reached out and pushed the warped office door slowly inward until it closed with a heavy, final click.