We finished right where we'd started – in her bed. Both of us exhausted, Krystal and I laid there for a few minutes talking.
“If we are actually in some kind of game or virtual world, I gotta say, that felt awfully-freakin' real!” I said.
“I know,” she agreed. “You were amazing. Are you naturally that gifted with women or is that just part of the simulation?”
“I've always surrounded myself with beautiful girls,” I replied. “I've had a lot of experience pleasing women.”
The words just flowed out of my mouth with little forethought. Technically, what I'd said was true. Kasie was unquestionably beautiful and we'd spent a lot of time together. And I did have a lot of experience pleasing women – just not sexually. I'd somehow managed to answer the question honestly while sounding cool at the same time. As I was thinking it, the following popped up in the center o my vision:
Skill Increase
[Social] Smooth Talk: 4/10 (+1)
[Sexual] Sex: 6/10 (+1)
Seeing my skills increase reminded me that I wanted to find out which other ones I had. I thought to myself “skills” and the following popped up:
Physical Skills
Social Skills
Intellectual Skills
Sexual Skills
After checking out the different skill types, I thought to myself, “physical skills.” Then, right in the middle of my vision, I saw:
Physical Skills
Hand-To-Hand Combat: 6/10
Running: 5/10
Climbing: 4/10
Falling: 2/10
Marksmanship: 2/10
Jumping: 4/10
Swimming: 2/10
Driving: 1/10
“Interesting,” I said.
“What?” Krystal asked.
“I'm looking at my skills. I hope I don't need to drive anywhere anytime soon. My driving skill is one out of ten.”
“Have you ever driven a car before?” Krystal asked.
“Nope. Never. No need to. I've lived in the city my whole life. That's my only physical skill that's only a one out of ten.”
“I haven't looked at my physical skills yet,” Krystal said. “I checked out my social and sexual skills already, though. I'll look at them now.”
Sexual skills. I was extremely curious to see what mine were. I thought it and they popped up in front of me.
Sexual Skills
Arousal: 8/10
Seduction: 5/10
Pleasuring Women: 6/10
Dirty Talk: 3/10
Sex: 6/10
Refractory Period: 1st 20 min./2nd 60 min./3rd+ 120 min.
Build Up/Anticipation: 3/10
Plate Spinning: 4/10
I wasn't sure exactly what the Arousal and Refractory Period skills meant. Then, I remembered that there was a help command. I thought to myself, “refractory period help.” The list of my sexual skills was replaced with the following text:
Refractory Period Skill: The amount of time needed after an orgasm to become aroused again. The time corresponds to how long it takes after each orgasm: 20 min. after the 1st, 60 min. after the 2nd, etc. After 12 hours without an orgasm, the time resets back to 0.
“Interesting,” I thought to myself. Then, I thought, “arousal help.” I couldn't stop myself from laughing in my head a little bit. The last thing I needed was help getting aroused. Over the previous couple days, I had been getting turned on more and more often than ever. But I wasn't sure exactly what the skill meant. Replacing the text in my vision was the following:
Arousal Skill: How easily you're able to get sexually aroused. In other words, how easily you're able to get it up.
It made sense that my Arousal skill was an eight out of ten. I couldn't help but wonder what it must be like having a score of ten. Just looking at Krystal as she walked or at Amber or Kasie fully clothed and I could feel myself starting to get a little hard. With an Arousal score of ten, it must be like walking around with wood all day long.
The last skill I was unsure about was Plate Spinning. I had no idea what that meant, so I thought “plate spinning help” and the following popped up:
Plate Spinning: Managing sexual relationships with multiple women. Like spinning plates on your fingers, head, and toes, each one requires special attention to keep it from falling. This skill determines how good you are at managing and maintaining multiple sexual relationships.
I thought to myself “close” and the words disappeared. Multiple sexual relationships – I liked the sound of that. Although I hadn't thought of it in those terms, I was spinning plates. Krystal, Amber, and Melissa were all women that I'd had sex with, in one way or another, and I hoped that there would be more with all three. I looked over at Krystal and, at the same time, she looked at me.
“What we just did increased a couple of my skills,” Krystal said with a smile.
“Mine, too,” I replied. “Which skills of yours did it increase?”
“Sex went up by one. Now it's eight out of ten. So did Seduction. Now it's a nine. I guess I'm pretty good at seducing guys,” Krystal said, accompanied by a short laugh.
“I can't speak for other guys, but you sure seduced the crap out of me!”
We both laughed. Krystal and I rolled over on our sides so we were facing each other. My eyes wandered down to her magnificent breasts, then worked their way all the way down to her feet before coming back up and meeting her eyes. Krystal was so incredibly hot. Just looking at her made me start getting hard again. It had been about twenty minutes, so I knew I was ready to go again.
“You know,” she said, running a single finger slowly down my chest, “my Pleasuring Men skill is only at five out of ten. Before I call my friend, let's see if we can raise it to a six or a seven.”
“Speaking of raised,” I said with a smirk.
Krystal wrapped her fingers around me, stroking it gently until I was as hard as steel. I laid down flat on her bed and she got between my legs. The next few minutes were spent lying back and doing nothing but enjoying Krystal's hands and mouth. She was incredible. She had me making sounds I'd never made before. Afterward, she sat up and a big smile appeared on her face.
“All right!” Krystal said. “Pleasuring Men just went from five to six out of ten.”
“Awesome. You wanna see if we can get it up to a ten?” I asked, smiling.
“I'd be up for the challenge. But I don't think you'll be up again any time soon,” Krystal replied, laughing.
Looking between my legs, I replied, “No, I suppose not – not for another sixty minutes, at least. Why don't we get dressed and call your friend.”
“Sounds good.”
Krystal and I got cleaned up and put our clothes on. We sat back down on the edge of the bed where we had been sitting before we had sex. She took out her phone and dialed her friend, putting it on speakerphone.
“Krystal! Wassup?”
“Hey, Jessica! I got a quick question for you. You remember Carter Livingston?”
“Of course. How could I forget that d-bag.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Krystal asked, then looked at me. “Me and my, um, friend, James, need to find him. We have a class with him.”
“Hi Jessica,” I said.
“Hello! Yeah, I know where he lives. Unfortunately, he lives in the same dorm as me. I haven't seen him in a couple days, though.”
“Any idea where he might be?”
“He's probably in Southie. I heard he was getting mixed up with some bad people down there.”
“Do you know where in Southie?” I asked.
“There's a pool hall he hangs out at all the time. It's called Side Pocket. He took me there one time and that was enough for me. It was filled with a bunch of creeps.”
“Anything else you can tell us about Carter?” Krystal asked.
“Yeah. He's an asshole,” Jessica replied.
Krystal and I both laughed.
“My pleasure. Toodles!” Jessica said and hung up.
Krystal and I knew what we had to do. We put on our shoes and headed out to the nearest T stop. A couple minutes later, the train arrived. We took the Green Line to the Red, which brought us to Southie. From there, my GPS did the rest of the work. I searched for Side Pocket and it was only a short walk from the Broadway T stop where we'd gotten off. A few minutes later, Krystal and I were standing outside of the seedy pool hall.
“What's the plan?” she asked. “Are we just gonna walk right in? Or did you have something else in mind?”
“Let's go in and get a table,” I replied. “We'll play some pool while we look around.”
“I'm not very good, but okay,” Krystal said.
“I'm not great, myself,” I replied. “But it doesn't matter. We're not here to hustle anyone or to work on our bank shots. We're here to find Carter.”
She smiled and nodded. I opened the door for Krystal and followed her in, watching her perfect butt sway back and forth as she walked. The pool hall was dimly lit and reeked of cigarette smoke. It was the middle of the afternoon and there weren't many people inside. A few tables had people at them – mostly scruffy-looking men but there were a few trashy-looking women around, too. In the back of the pool hall behind the counter stood a tall bearded and tattooed man who was watching Sports Center on a small TV hanging on the wall.
“Come on,” I said to Krystal, putting my hand on her lower back and guiding her along with me. “Let's go get a table.”
We walked up to the man behind the counter. His eyes remained glued to the TV for several seconds until it went to a commercial break. Only then did he finally look down at us. He was incredibly tall, easily six inches taller than me – probably more. There was an impossible-not-to-notice scar on his face, starting just under his eye, going down his cheek, disappearing into his thick beard. He was an intimidating man.
“We'd like to get a table, please,” I said.
“Table four,” he said in a deep voice, reaching under the counter and pulling out a tray of pool balls for us.
“Thank you,” Krystal and I both said at the same time.
We went over to table four and I racked the balls. Krystal and I started playing a game of eight ball. I couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was watching us and thought it was all in my head at first. But Krystal confirmed it a minute later.
“Everyone's watching us out of the corners of their eyes,” she said, quietly.
“Maybe they're just checking out you and those sexy legs of yours,” I replied.
Krystal blushed and replied, “Actually, I think they're checking out you more than they are me.”
She was right. Every time I glanced up from the table, I'd catch at least one person quickly look away from me. I didn't know why they were looking at me but it made me really uncomfortable.
Krystal and I continued playing pool, doing our best to check out our surroundings without staring. She wasn't kidding: Krystal was awful. I wasn't very good, either, but I was much better than her. In fact, I won our first game and, right after Krystal congratulated me, the following popped into my vision:
New Physical Skill!
Billiards: 1/10 (+1)
“Sweet!” Krystal said. “A new skill.”
“You, too?” I replied.
“Yup. A new social skill: Graceful In Defeat. One out of ten.”
“Oh,” I replied. “I got a new physical skill: Billiards.”
“I wonder why I didn't get that skill. I played just as much pool as you. Maybe it's because you won.”
“Maybe. Let's play again,” I suggested.
“Okay.”
I racked the balls again. As soon as I finished, I grabbed my pool cue and walked around the table to break, since I won the last game. I looked around the room and, as I did, I noticed the tall guy behind the counter looking at me. Unlike everyone else in the pool hall, he didn't avert his eyes when I looked at him – he just kept staring at me. He was on the phone, an old rotary phone sitting on the counter. My eyes returned to the pool table as I got to the other side and, after chalking up my cue, I broke up the balls to the best of my ability. And my billiards ability was a one.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Krystal said as I only sunk one ball – the cue ball. “Isn't it bad when you sink the cue ball on the break?”
“Well, it's not good,” I replied and laughed a little. “You can either take the ball in hand or re-rack them all and break again.”
“I'll just take the ball.”
She took a shot and missed, followed by me doing the same right after. We continued this pattern for several minutes until I finally sunk a stripe. I don't think either of us were very focused on the game – we were too busy feeling uneasy. Even with my newfound confidence, I found myself feeling a little scared. I didn't show it to Krystal, though. I did my best to come across cool, calm, and confident.
A little while later, with about half of the balls still on the table, Krystal and I both looked over at the man behind the counter when the rotary phone rang. It was quite loud, echoing throughout the pool hall, and caught both of our attention. The man behind the counter must've called out when I saw him on the phone a little earlier because there's no way we wouldn't have heard it ring.
He picked up the phone immediately after the second ring. As soon as he held it up to his ear, he looked directly at me. I couldn't make out what he said, but he only spoke two or three words before hanging up the phone.
“That was weird,” Krystal said, seeing the same thing that I did.
“Yup,” I replied. “It was.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I have no idea. Maybe we should get out of here,” I suggested.
“I think that'd be smart. Something doesn't feel right.”
Krystal helped me put all the pool balls back into the tray and we brought them up to the counter.
“We're all done,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Compliments of the house,” the man behind the counter replied.
“Wow, really?” I said, surprised. “Thank you. Then I guess we'll just be on our way.”
“Your welcome,” he replied in his deep, bassy voice. “But no you won't.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You're not going anywhere until the boss has a word with you.”
11.
Krystal and I looked at each other. I could see panic in her eyes. We'd both felt like something was up, but now we both knew it. What, exactly, neither of us had any idea.
I grabbed Krystal's hand and started walking hurriedly toward the door, keeping an eye on the man behind the counter. He didn't come after us, but he did put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Everyone in the pool hall – all the men, anyway – walked over and blocked the door.
“We don't want any trouble,” I said.
“We just want to be on our way,” Krystal added.
“And after you talk to the boss, maybe he'll let you be on your way,” the man behind the counter said. “Then again, maybe he won't. We're just as curious as you are.”
There was no way we were going to get through all those men. There were close to a dozen of them, each one more dangerous looking than the guy next to him. Even with the confidence I'd gained from the fights I'd won over the past couple days, I knew I wouldn't be able to take all of them. A few, maybe, but not all of them. We had no choice but to stick around and see what the boss wanted with us. Krystal was apparently thinking the same thing.
“Why does your boss want to talk to us?” she asked.
“Don't know,” answered the man behind the counter. “Again, we're just as curious as you are.”
One of the women in the pool hall peeked through the blinds in the window and replied, “We'll all know soon. He's here.”
“Why don't the two of you
have a seat over there until the boss is ready to talk to you,” one of the men said, pointing to an old, beaten-up couch in the corner.
When he pointed, I noticed the tattoo on his arm. It was the symbol of the Southie Soldiers. Their symbol was two S's, but they were curvy S's, probably to distinguish themselves from the German SS symbol popular with neo-Nazi groups. The Southie Soldiers had members of all races and backgrounds. I'd heard a lot of bad things about them over the years but the one thing I'd never heard them called was racist.
I looked around the room at all the guys and saw a few other SS tattoos. It dawned on me that we were inside their pool hall. Their leader or “boss,” as everyone kept referring to him, probably wanted to know who the guy and girl either brave or stupid enough to just walk into his establishment were.
“What do you think he wants with us?” Krystal whispered in my ear as soon as we sat down on the nasty couch.
“I think we are in the Southie Soldiers' pool hall,” I whispered back. “The boss probably just wants to make sure we're not from a rival gang or something. I'll explain to him that we just came here to look for someone but, since he's not here, we'll gladly leave and never come back.”
“Let's hope it works.”
The front door swung open and all the men that had been blocking it moved out of the way. Our eyes were glued to the door – not just Krystal and I, but everyone else in the pool hall, too. When we saw the leader of the Southie Soldiers walk inside, both me and Krystal's jaws dropped.
And when he saw us, he just smiled.
“Well, well, well,” Carter said, slowly walking toward Krystal and I. “When I got a call saying that there were a couple of people snooping around my pool hall, looking around, who can barely tell the difference between the cue ball and the eight ball, I never would've imagined it would be the two of you!”
“Your pool hall?” I asked.
“Ours, really,” Carter replied, pointing around to everyone else in the room. “The Southie Soldiers. But, as their leader, I'm well within my rights to call it my own. The question is: What are you two doing here?”
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