Hey guys! This story has a bit of a slow build, but I promise there's plenty of sex and romance as the story goes on. And later chapters are LOADED with it. Enjoy!
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COLIN
Let me start out by saying that I never intended for any of this to happen. I didn't know what Dominus' true plans were. If only I had...
I can't go back and change the past, Zach. All I can do is tell you the truth and hope that you'll be able to forgive me.
You have to understand—Ecclesium is not a cult.
We were doing amazing things, we really were. Our mission was to change the world one step at a time. We were going to help people clear away the wreckage of their past, to free themselves of their own internal limitations so that their future could be whatever they wanted it to be.
At least, that's what I used to believe.
My life before I joined Ecclesium looks like a dream when I look back on it. I grew up in Kansas City with a pretty privileged lifestyle, if I'm being honest. My parents were loving and supportive, don't get me wrong, but I never had to work for anything or suffer through any real trauma.
When I was young I thought this meant that I was lucky, that I wouldn't be bogged down by the same things that other people had. But Dominus helped me see the truth. He taught me that I was drifting through life, that I had taken my hands off the driver's wheel and was simply going wherever the wind blew me.
I moved out to LA when I was 18 because I had it in my head that I wanted to make it as an actor. I thought that movie star good looks and a set of abs would be enough to help me make it out here. After all, my black hair, thick eyebrows, and sharp jaw had always gotten me cast as the romantic lead in all of the plays in high school. I figured taking on Hollywood would be a breeze.
I quickly realized that I wasn't prepared for the amount of hard work being an actor actually called for. Guys like me were a dime a dozen out here. You couldn't throw a stone without hitting another Joe six-pack looking to make it big. I needed a strong work ethic to succeed, but I was too unwilling to put in the time and effort to grind and achieve the things I wanted.
So, I began to stagnate. I took on a job first as a waiter, then a barista, then a personal trainer. I told myself that I was working these jobs to support me until I made it as an actor, but the truth is that I only went to a handful of auditions in my first five years of living in LA.
That was, until I joined Ecclesium. I first learned about them when a personal training client of mine invited me to one of their introductory workshops.
"What the hell is Ecclesium?" I asked. "It sounds like some kind of church group or something."
"Trust me," she said. "They will change your life."
For better or for worse, she was right.
My first session started off relatively unimpressively. I sat in the back of a stifling room in a building off of Pico Blvd, sweating through my shirt. I remember thinking that the man at the front of the room was wearing a button-down shirt two sizes too big for him and wondering what I was supposed to get out of this guy.
Then he showed us a video explaining something called an R&R: Revisit and Reframe.
The goal of an R&R was to take something in your past and reexamine it, something that you felt was holding you back from achieving your dreams. By revisiting it with the help of one of Ecclesium's senior delegates, you could relinquish the hold that this event had on your psyche and actually move beyond it.
I'll be honest, it sounded like bullshit to me at first. Sure, it was nice in theory, the idea that all of our cages were mental. But I was skeptical at the idea that your life could change forever in the span of an hour.
Then I watched as the man worked with a woman from the audience. Her husband had just left her for another woman and she was practically falling apart onstage as she revealed to the audience what he had done.
I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable as I watched her crying onstage, detailing all of the private and humiliating aspects of her marriage for us all to see. I didn't understand why she was okay being put on the spot like this. Shouldn't they be doing this somewhere more private?
But I watched as he talked her through the events, through the subconscious limitations she had placed on herself as a result of her husband's infidelity.
She was unlovable. She was damaged. She would never be able to find happiness.
He went through her limitations with her one by one, rejecting and reframing each of them into active assertions. She was settling for men who would hurt her because that was what she thought she deserved. Her inability to allow herself to hope was holding her back from believing she could find someone who truly loved her.
I watched her become visibly lighter throughout the course of her R&R. He wasn't holding back, unafraid to push back against her and challenge her. By the time the man had finished, it was like a different woman was sitting on the stage in front of me.
I was hooked.
I walked right up to the delegate after the session and asked him how I could get involved. He stared back at me with such intensity that I felt just as on the spot as that woman had been just minutes ago.
"What is it you want from us?" he asked.
I was taken aback. "I... I don't know," I stammered.
"Surely you must want something."
"I want to be an actor," I said, a little bit more confidently.
He nodded. "Many of our members are highly successful actors. Each of them credited Ecclesium with turning the tide in their careers. But it's not something that's going to happen overnight. Are you willing to put in the work?"
I nodded vigorously. "I'll do whatever it takes."
He told me to sign up for one of their extended courses. Although it cost $1000 (which was more than twice as much as I had to my name), I was willing to pay it in order to be involved. I truly believed that Ecclesium could help me find success as an actor.
So, I charged it to my credit card and began my journey into Ecclesium. My first session proved a resounding success—my senior delegate quickly helped me see that my upbringing had inspired in me a fear of discomfort and hard work. By avoiding any form of discomfort, I was robbing myself of the ability to grow and to get ahead.
Once I was able to reframe this in my mind, it was like a flip had been switched in me. I was no longer drifting through life. I grabbed the wheel and took charge, driven by a new sense of motivation and purpose. Within weeks I was going to auditions left and right, showing up to open calls, throwing myself at any casting agent who would see me.
Soon the roles came pouring in. It started with small stuff: a role as an extra on a Disney channel show, a walk-on role in Days of Our Lives. But then I began booking actual roles. A speaking role on an episode of The Walking Dead, a recurring role on This Is Us. My big break, of course, came when I landed one of the lead roles of the newest Netflix show Chasing Emory.
People finally knew my name. I would walk down Crescent Heights and people would stop me and say, "Are you Colin Baker?" It was surreal.
I was no longer Colin, the lazy bum from Kansas City.
I was Colin Baker, heartthrob.
I took the money I earned from my newfound success and poured it back tenfold into Ecclesium. I signed up for course after course, hoping to earn my way up to the role of senior delegate. You see, Ecclesium gave me so much more than just success as an actor. It gave me a purpose, a sense of community. It's one thing to see the changes happening in your own life. It's another to walk through them with someone else, to see them transform in front of you as they cast off this weight that they didn't even realize was there.
I quickly rose up through the ranks, aided no doubt by my overnight fame. Ecclesium liked to reward the rich and famous, that's for sure. I brought in recruit after recruit, spreading Ecclesium's message to everyone I could possibly reach. I was only 23 years old when I joined Ecclesium. By the time I was 25, I had already gotten the position of senior delegate, faster than anyone else in the organization.
I had also caught the attention of Dominus himself.
Dominus was a quirky fellow. With his long hair tied back in a man bun and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a hipster than a 40-year-old multi-millionaire. But Dominus was also incredibly enigmatic. He had a way of seeing through all of your bullshit, of instantly engaging you in a way that made you feel seen.
The first time I met him, he was visiting the LA chapter to oversee the opening of our new Venice location. I was in charge of running it, having been awarded the position in what felt like the ultimate honor. He made a point of reaching out to me after the opening ceremony and we spent the entire night walking along the beach in Santa Monica.
I found myself instantly drawn to him. The way he spoke... it was like in one second, he was able to distill all of these complicated concepts into one succinct phrase. All of the emotions that I'd felt my entire life but could never express, he was able to enunciate with such clarity. He could read me like a book, and I instantly deferred to his better judgment.
We kept in constant contact through the next few years. Although the headquarters of Ecclesium were in DC, Dominus was bicoastal, frequently flying on his private jet back and forth the two cities to attend Ecclesium conferences and touch base with the senior delegates. I became one of his most trusted allies, keeping him apprised of the goings on of the LA chapter and identifying potential Hollywood recruits.
Just after my 28th birthday, Chasing Emory was cancelled. We had just completed our fourth season and my career was seriously beginning to take off. I was being offered the lead in a blockbuster movie that would have made me over $1 million, but my work for Ecclesium made me reluctant to commit to something that would take me out of LA to film.
My manager told me that I was crazy, that I was giving up what could be a major career move all for some self-help group.
But I didn't care.
Like I said, I believed we were doing incredible things. I thought it was my higher calling. And I had become Dominus's de facto right-hand man. He trusted me with everything, letting me take the reigns of the entire LA chapter and make it my own.
Well, his own, really. I was nothing but a puppet of Dominus at this point, although I didn't realize it. I talked like him, walked like him, and thought like him.
