by Alden Odessa
All things considered, there were worse existential crisis’.
I looked at the men outside the door and looked back to the girls. I greeted the men, even shook their hands. They were excited to see me for some reason, more than anything I think they were excited to see Betty and April, just to know that there were girls in the proximity.
“Are these the girls?” the first man asked. He was younger, mid to late twenties. I shook my head and then cracked open the door.
“No,” I said, letting them look inside, “these are the girls.”
They all four got a look at both girls, eating each other out and their eyes about fell out of their head. I definitely should have charged more.
I leaned my head in. “Girls, are you ready?” I asked. They didn’t say anything, rather Stephanie just stopped playing with Courtney’s tit and lifted her hand in the air, giving me a thumbs up.
The men all chose to go in as a group, so this party would already go into high gear. I let them in and then closed the door behind them as the girls got to their feet and wiped off their mouths.
I looked down the hall and a few other men had just gotten off the elevator, a line was forming, this might just work after all!
I spoke to each of them, made sure they were aware of the rules. They got one look at Bogo and I could tell that they knew these girls were nothing to be fucked with.
I looked at Bogo and asked him to crack the door so I could check on the girls before I left. When I peaked inside, I saw that all four men were engaged. Both Courtney and Stephanie were on the couch, bent over with their knees on the cushions. A man was behind each of them ramming it home while the other two men were in front of them; getting sucked off by the girls.
I would have to burn that couch.
Bogo shut the door, and I looked at him. “Bogo, you’re in charge now. If anything happens to those girls, I’m going to...” I paused. “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do to you. But I won’t be happy.”
“Girls safe, boss,” he said in his deep, gravel-soaked voice.
I looked at my other two girls and told them it was time to do our part and we headed down the hallway towards the elevator.
20
The April Situation
Amazing how much better she looked in some proper clothing.
We had gone down into The Upper Bottoms market and clothes shopping was the first thing we had done. I had a little money to play with and it was energizing. From the moment we left the hotel the flashes appeared in my peripheral. First had been the two hundred from the four men and it kept going up from there in fifty dollar increments.
When we got to the clothing store, the first thing I did was go to a secluded area to check my stats for two reasons. I wanted to see what kind of money we had pulled in as well as where my health was at. I was feeling a little light-headed, and it wasn’t the shitty whiskey I had drank at the bar.
H: 15 $:327 BR:57 T:65 DOM:68 PRW:80 ST:12
That wasn’t good.
I can’t remember exactly what my stats had been after my foursome with the girls. I don’t know if I just couldn’t remember or if my lack of health was causing me to have a hard time thinking. I focused my attention to it and looked at the numbers.
Two things were obvious. The health was in bad shape. This is about as low as I have been while in the game, and I remember how bad I was getting when I was down to a twelve. Considering all I had done today without sleep I was honestly happy with that fifteen number. I’m not sure how the adrenaline affected that number, but I guess it took it into account. Everything is speculation at this point.
The money was also clearly higher than it had been; it had been around a hundred last I checked and I had had a few shots of whiskey and overpaid for limited information since then.
All things considered, I really can’t believe the girls went for this proposition. This all happened really fast, especially from their perspective. “Hi. I’m Buster, I will be fucking you today. Okay, cool. Hey, here’s twenty guys. Fuck them.”
This was basically the extent of my relationship with the girls so far. I got them, and then they were mine and they did whatever I said. At least so far.
I’m curious if that is part of the programming; my harem is designed to be loyal. Either that or it had to do with my other statistics, like TRUST and DOMINANCE.
Speaking of which, I really couldn’t remember what they had been at, but it wasn’t a drastic change. I’m pretty sure that the BRAINS and TRUST both went up, a significant bump. Once again, this all made sense that it would happen this way. I had came up with a plan that was in progress and clearly working. I was giving the customer what they wanted at an excellent value. I would remember this for future endeavors.
As I was thinking about it, I saw a money upgrade. Fifty dollars, another man serviced. All the money was going straight to my bankroll. I would have to remember that I had to pay the girls, and I also had to come up with some way to compensate Bogo. Fuck, I have to do math. What kind of game makes you do math? I wish this part of the game was automated.
Betty I didn’t know how I would compensate, but I’m sure I would think of something.
I don’t know how long this train will run, so while I had the money I needed to get supplies so that we could live past today. I would make a little money tonight, but it was a fleeting thing as I now had six people to take care of. Feed, house, and clothe. It would not be easy and I would have to make more than what I was currently charging. It was a good sign however that a small amount of money stretched pretty far down here.
I could get April clothed for twenty dollars, and it wasn’t too shabby. Doubt it would play very well by The Reference, but it looked good for down here.
“You look good,” I said to April.
“Thank you,” she said coyly. She was still reserved, and I was wondering when she would loosen up. She had been almost silent on the way down here. I can’t press the issue, a time will present itself as to when I will be able to ask the questions I need to know the answers to.
While in the clothing store I shopped for the other girls. “Do you know their sizes?” I asked April, but she was no help. She didn’t seem to know much about women’s clothing so I was just going to have to eyeball it. I picked up two outfits for each girl plus one more lounging around outfit. All-in-all I walked out of the store one-hundred-thirty dollars lighter. Not bad. The economy down here matched the prices I was charging, but it would be hard to get ahead.
We went out into the open air market and picked out food. With two of us we were running out of hands. Luckily I was able to purchase a pull-behind cart that would enable me to carry much more than my hands would. It was a tremendous relief.
We picked up three day's worth of food, mostly dried goods as we still didn’t have the means to cook anything. We also picked up supplies and hygiene products. Taking care of four women would require a lot of products, especially when I had to make these women look good. It was mostly things to help them smell nice, perfumes and oils, soaps and fragrances. Tomorrow I would bring them back down here to pick out things like makeup. I may not know a lot about women’s clothing, but I knew even less about make-up.
My cart was overflowing with products and I decided it was time to head back.
“Do you need anything else?” I asked April.
“I don’t think so,” she said, plainly. I really couldn’t get much more than a one-sentence answer out of her and she did not seem to be a conversation starter.
“I’d like to get back to the hotel, the longer we are away the more likely something bad will happen.”
“What kind of bad?”
Shit, I didn’t need to make her more nervous. “Not bad, I’d just like to be a little closer to my product.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Do you drink?” I asked her.
“I think,” she said. I don’t have the slightest idea what that meant. You either did drink, or you di
dn’t drink. I really did not understand what to make of her.
“Let’s head back to The Falls, we’ll hang out at the bar until the girls are finished for the night or we run out of clientele, whichever comes first.”
She simply nodded her head, and we took off towards the hotel. Me with my wheeled cart of supplies and a growing sense of satisfaction.
21
The April Exposition
I was feeling good at the bar in the lower level of The Falls. I had gone up to check on the girls, Bogo said all had been going well, but the girls were getting a little tired. Luckily there were only a few customers left lined up outside the door. I thought about peeking in myself but then thought better of it, something about what I was making these girls do felt wrong to me.
I had to be honest with myself. I didn’t go into any of this with altruistic intentions. I deliberately deceived my wife and spent a lot of money—our money—to get involved with this game. I certainly had no idea (how could of I?) that this would happen, but this endeavor started with me being a terrible person and it looks like that’s how I will stay. At least if I’m going to get out of this in one piece.
I came into this with the intentions of having virtual reality sex and when it turned out even better and more realistic than I could have imagined; I kept doing it. So I’m just pure as the driven slush over here, I don’t see why now I would start to have any form of moral hang-ups.
It was the level of this reality that was freaking me out. This feeling I got that this was more than just a game. It wasn’t virtual reality; it was a reality. It was to everyone in that room not named Buster Rockknocker. What’s worse is that it was feeling like my reality to. How long had I been here, I can’t even remember? Was it two days or was it four, may as well have been a week. It had to have been at least two days because that’s how long I had this room reserved for. I would have to go to the front desk in the morning and see if I could get a weekly rate. I had the money now, but I may need to get another room, this party of six was too big for what we had right now.
The point that I was forgetting that this was all a game. These women in there, getting it stuffed in them for fifty bucks a load, they were a game. This mammoth man standing in front of me, he was a non-playable character in a game as well as the woman, April, standing beside me. Her fear seemed real, her shock and the feeling of being overwhelmed. It was just a game, but she didn’t know that. She would never know that. She would only know what she feels right now.
Did she ever know? Did something happen to her, did she learn of her reality and that’s why she was acting how she was? Betty said she found her beneath The Landmark in The Gallows. Does she have a past, or is she a new character? If she was a new character, why? Why would the game be making new characters at this point? It seemed like Betty had been here for a while, and that explained her age. To hear her tell it, she seems to have stories from all over the city, she’s been in many different harems. Hell, I’d only just scratched the surface of Betty’s story, much less April’s.
But Betty was older, close to my age and so was April. Sure she was probably a few years younger than I was, but in Hot House Harem Online that was ancient. It’s like both had been here for a long time, especially Betty. But her time was accounted for, which leads me back to April.
I look at Bogo, tell him what a good job he is doing and that if they needed us we would be down in the bar, with Betty. He nodded. I asked him if he needed anything and he told me he was hungry. I showed him the wheeled basket of supplies and I told him to help himself to anything in there; it was mostly for him, anyway. Obviously, don’t eat the women’s clothes. He snorted some laughter and then April and I headed downstairs.
I checked in with Betty, she was in the bar area. She said they had exhausted their client base at the moment. She asked if I wanted her to stick around and I told her not to worry about it; the girls were getting tired. There was only one client left when I had been up there and he didn’t look like a marathon man.
I gave her some money; I told her to go to the bar and to send up two bottles of champagne and an assortment of other drinks for the girls. As well as whatever else she would like. I let her know Bogo had food and supplies.
See to the women, I told her, see if they need anything, they had just been through a lot. Get them cleaned up and feeling good again. Let them know they could sleep as long as they wanted in the morning and to get a start on it. I would be up shortly. April and I were going to have a drink.
Once again, Betty did as I told her without a hence of jealousy or spite. She was a team player.
I directed my attention to April. “What do you like to drink?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something fruity then?”
“Okay,” she said with no inflection.
I walked up to the bar and the same bartender was still there, looking dashing and attentive as ever. I stood there for a while before he noticed me and then when he did he treated me as if he had never seen me before.
So I had to go through the whole explanation of what drink I wanted and then I told him to also make something fruity, and strong, for my company at the table. He seemed annoyed as if the fruity drink might take a moment.
While he did that I checked my stat screen.
H: 8 $:755 BR:59 T:65 DOM:68 PRW:80 ST:12
I have to get to sleep, I’m about to zero out, and I have a feeling that the only thing keeping me going right now is pure adrenaline. I still didn’t have any concrete proof that that was even a thing in the game.
That money was great though, I’m not sure how much I spent tonight, but I know it hadn’t been cheap. Tomorrow, my girls would have clothes, food, and a place to stay. I still hadn’t stopped to think about the fact I should probably also buy another outfit, I had been wearing this one the entire time I had been here. It hadn’t started to stink yet, but it was going to.
I noticed that the money was a different color on my screen. I looked around me at the bar and no one was looking at me and I knew they couldn’t see my screen. I moved my hand up slightly and tapped the money number and it opened up a new screen.
It was a detailed invoice, saying how much I had made, but there didn’t seem to be any indication as to how much I had spent. When I had time, I could do some simple math and figure it out. It did show me the girls income though; I guessed that this existed so I could pay them. Total they had serviced twenty-two men tonight. I’m guessing that any man that had been here tonight, interested in what we were selling, bought. That was good, a good number. But I know that that is not as much money as I need it to be. Sure, it will keep us all alive, but past that, I can’t run this special every night, it’s too taxing on the girls. That number also did not account for the money I would have to pay the girls as well as Bogo and Betty. They never even got a break tonight, that door kept opening and new men kept entering.
The life of a hooker is not an easy one.
The bartender returned, and I quickly closed out my stat screen. I took the drinks and more money floated away from me in front of my face.
The drinks and I returned to April.
She hadn’t moved; she was still sitting at our little table. The bar had cleared out a good amount. Few people still circulated I don’t know if it was the time of the night or if it had something to do with the fact I had cleared out most the men tonight; the women, with no money to be made, moved on.
“April, what’s your story,” I said, pulling her out of whatever fog she was in.
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t pegged you as dim, am I wrong?”
“Dim?”
“Stupid.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think your stupid and I don’t think you have some sort of problem. Maybe a lesbian, that seems possible, you seemed more comfortable with a mouth on you than a dick in you and I’m sorry if I’m being awfully blunt here, but I have a job to do and I need to know what purpo
se you will serve to me.”
As I spoke to her, I saw the fear build back up in her eyes. I’m a different person here that I was on Earth, I spoke differently. I even spoke differently than I thought. In my head I was still Doug, the financial advisor, but my words, the words that came out of my mouth was all Buster Rockknocker, smooth operator. However, sometimes my words could be a little to-the-point. I think with April I would need to use a little more of an easy hand.
“I’m sorry, I went too fast there didn’t I,” I said. “Tell you what, tell me where you are from.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s impossible, we all know where we’re from.”
“Where are you from?”
Fuck, she got me, thinking fast I said, “I’m from here. I was born here.” Technically, I wasn’t lying, I was born here, spawned in fact, a few days ago.
I had thought about what she said, but not how she said it. She said it with a quick wit as if being cross-examined. She wasn’t stupid. I think she was just confused.
“I don’t know where I’m from,” she said, and I found it to be most interesting.
“Explain,” I said and took a sip of my whiskey, she still hadn’t touched her drink.
She paused for a long moment. Enough for the whiskey to burn down my throat and raise an argument in my stomach.
She looked off into the distance. She made a face as if she made up her mind about something and then turned back to me. She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, forearms laying flat. She looked at me, started to speak, then stopped, then went on with it. “It’s going to sound weird.”
I smirked at her. “You will find that my tolerance for weirdness is pretty high.”
“I don’t remember anything before a few days ago.”
“Nothing?”