The Long Dark Four-Way of the Soul

by Alden Odessa

  Hot House Online 3

  The Long Dark Four-Way of the Soul

  Alden Odessa

  Copyright © 2018 by Alden Odessa

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters portrayed are over 18 years of age.

  Contents

  1. The Most Wonderful of Dreams

  2. Harsh Reality

  3. The Plan 2.0

  4. Game Theory

  5. Ambulance Chasing

  6. Checking In

  7. Room Assignments

  8. Everything You Could Hope for and More

  9. A Conscious Effort to Stop Worrying About It

  10. Group Meeting

  11. None of the Work, All of the Reward

  12. The April Situation Reprise

  13. Who Am I This Time?

  14. Domesticated Wild Animals

  15. Tit-for-tat

  16. There Came a Tapping on Room Five

  17. The Frequent Fuckers Club

  18. Reading the Signs

  19. Shoot Out at the Show-Tel Motel

  20. Albert's Inadequacies

  21. Crossroads

  22. Spawning

  23. Good, Old-fashioned Bait and Switch

  24. What I Paid to Do

  25. Windfall

  26. Background Information

  27. Making Time

  28. Sorry Is a Start

  29. Missing Girl

  30. New Trinkets

  31. Familiar Places

  32. A Plan to Split Up

  33. Two the Hard Way

  34. Doug

  35. Not a Glitch

  The Story Continues…

  Also by Alden Odessa

  1

  The Most Wonderful of Dreams

  I was having the most wonderful dream.

  I was lying in bed, Karen by my side. We were in our bedroom. Did she buy new sheets? I have a feeling we just got them dirty if she did.

  I turn to look at her; she is angelic, we just had sex. I don't remember doing it, but I know we did; she carried that post-coital glow. She laid, naked, under the crisp white sheets. What day was it? It felt like the weekend, it always feels like the weekend in a dream.

  The window was open. I could hear birds singing a lovely song as if cheering for what we had just done. She leans over and puts her arm on my chest. This is pure bliss. She is happy as am I.

  I look up at the ceiling and listen to the birds sing their cheerful song. If I could, I would stay here forever, but here's the thing: I know it's a dream. I'm not going to fall for it this time, but all I had to do was figure out a way to not wake up. If I could manage to just sleep for the rest of my life, I could live inside this moment and never want for anything else.

  The further I got away from my waking life, the harder it became to remember. What was I doing before this dream? I don't remember falling asleep. I'm sure it was lovely, just like this.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed Karen's thigh. Her naked body felt good against mine; I was about to drift off to sleep inside the dream. I think if I could fall asleep I will never wake up and go on living in this delight forever.

  Then Karen stirred, if she had not moved, I would have fallen asleep, but I felt her move her arm. She was raising it. I opened my eyes and saw why.

  Her arm was raised in the air, at the end, in her hand, she had a knife. She had an actual fucking butcher's knife in her hand.

  I didn't have a chance to react; I was almost asleep. My body was in a dream-like trance, stuck at that moment when you're not awake but yet not quite asleep. I can move my eyes; they flash over to her face; she is smiling. She is happy about this, and I don't know why.

  Isn't this a lovely dream that we are sharing? Why ya gotta bring out the knife?

  But bring out the knife she did, and it appeared as though she had every intention of using it! With one swift motion, she brought the knife down into my ribs; slamming it down to its hilt.

  I wake up from my loveliest of dreams.

  2

  Harsh Reality

  The happiness of the dream vanished, but the pain remained.

  It was a searing pain; it felt like the knife had come from the dream with me. I open my eyes to be greeted by someone that looked nothing like my wife. It was Bogo. He had tears in his eyes.

  "Sorry Boss," he said, carrying a look of shame.

  I can move just fine as evidenced by my writhing on the bed. The girls were all around me. I wish that they didn't see me like this.

  The cloud of the dream vanished quickly, and my thoughts became my own again. What time was it, was it morning? When did they find me? Where did they find me? Was I still in the hallway or had I crawled into the room of my own accord? All good questions for another time.

  To my left was Betty, she was holding my hand. "Try to stay still," she said, "I think you have a few broken ribs."

  Fantastic, that's just what I needed. Then I remember the worse news. Not only did I have broken ribs, but I also had no money. Bruce took it all, didn't leave me one red cent, or whatever the color of money was in this game. That bastard took it all, and I was going to have to break the news to all of them soon.

  "What happened?" Betty asked. I looked at her and then the other girls. They were all standing at the edge of the bed looking at me, unsure of what to do. Courtney, Stephanie, and April, all with their hands folded, looks of concern spread across their faces. I moaned in agony, but I knew I had to suck it up. They couldn't see me like this. I couldn't let them see me weak.

  That's when I realized no one had bothered to put any clothes on me. Not even a sheet. I was still bare ass naked. This was getting more embarrassing by the second.

  Before I explained it all to them, and tell them that all of our money was gone, I had to gain composure and try to regain some face. I bit my lip and tried to push myself up off of the bed.

  The pain got worse.

  Let's not do that.

  "Easy," said Betty.

  "I'll be fine," I said, a little snippier than I should have. Betty shut up and did not argue with me; she knew her place. She was obedient, the most loyal aide I could have possibly hoped to have, and she was just as fucked as I was, she just didn't know it yet. "Sorry," I said to her, for the snippiness.

  I leaned back on the pillow they had put behind my head. Amazing they thought of a pillow and not a sheet. I guess modesty just wasn't a thing, especially since I had had sex with everyone in the room except Bogo.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and composed myself. "Betty?" I called for her even though she was directly beside me.

  "Yes?"

  "Can you grab me a blanket? Or Sheet?"

  She looked around, almost frantically. "I'm sorry, I never even thought you might be cold!"

  Yeah, that's it. She found a blanket and put it over me. Finally, I could have a little dignity. What is it about being naked that makes you feel so... well, naked? My mind’s not right; I'm having trouble putting together sentences even in my head.

  "What happened?" Betty asked again.

  I opened my eyes and looked at her as she was the only one who knew who I would be talking about. "It was Bruce."

  "Bruce? Why did you even open the door?"

  "It's complicated," which reminded me I still had a message in my menu screen. I certainly couldn't check it while they were around. Anything I said to answer that question could lead her down a path of realization as to what was going on wi
th me, and this was rule number one, at least as it had been laid out to me by The Man in Blue.

  It's tough to be honest with people when you're lying to them one-hundred percent of the time.

  "He came for his money," I said. Betty just looked at me with sadness in her eyes. She knew that what had happened directly resulted from her. Had of I never met her I would be fine, have money and not be in debt to a gangster pimp.

  "This is my fault," she said.

  “Betty, this is not your fault, none of this is your fault okay?” she looked at me and cocked her head as if to say Are you sure about that? “Well, maybe a bit your fault. But, hey—” I had to save this conversation and then quit talking before it escalated and everyone started to panic, “we’re family, families have their ups and downs.”

  Did I really just refer to this as a family? Four hookers and an ogre? I wasn’t making this conversation any better. I had just woken up, from some sort of dream, that I had already forgotten, the only thing I could really think of was the pain shooting through my body, stemming from my side.

  I had never broken a rib before, but I knew people who had. There was nothing I could do about them; they just had to heal. This injury would be with me for a while. Complaining about it would do nothing, so I had to suck it up and move on. I still had a job to do, and suddenly I had a “family” to take care of.

  And not one whatever-colored cent.

  I sat up in the bed and looked at all of them. “Lift up your heads guys. Bogo, this is not your fault. You were asleep, I got myself into this on my own, and it is a situation that started before you joined us,” I said, before addressing Betty. “Betty, you are doing a great job of taking care of everybody, and I may have to lean on you a little more while I heal.”

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  “But things move on okay? This is just a hiccup; I’m not changing any sort of plan because of this. We carry on as normal,” I realized how stupid that sounded. “Or, at least, as we were.”

  They all looked at me as if I had more to say. They knew something else was amiss.

  “Now, I have other bad news,” I started, “besides breaking my ribs, Bruce also robbed me.”

  “How much did he take?” Betty said with a look of shock.

  “All of it,” the color went out of all of their faces. “He took all of it.” I looked at them; they had nothing to say to this. “I have nothing.”

  You could have heard a pin drop in the hotel room. You could have heard it from the coast—however far away that was, I have no idea as I still hadn’t even been on the other side of The Landmark Bridge.

  I looked at Courtney and Stephanie, “Girls, I’m sorry, but I can’t pay you.”

  They looked at me, without knowing what to say. Finally, Courtney found the words. “I don’t want to go back to being alone out there,” she said. “It’s getting worse. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Me neither,” piped in Stephanie.

  “And you’re not going to be. I’m not leaving you.”

  “But where will we go?”

  “I don’t know yet, I need a minute, but I’ll figure it out,” I looked at Bogo. “Bogo, are you okay?”

  “How do you mean, boss?”

  “Will you be staying with me? With us?”

  He looked surprised that I asked this. “I can stay?”

  “Of course, why couldn’t you?”

  He hung his head in shame once again. “I failed you.”

  “Horseshit! You didn’t fail at anything! Unless, of course, you mean protecting these two girls last night from all those men and then giving up your own bed so they would have someplace to sleep. If you consider that failing then yes, you failed me tremendously.”

  He looked confused, there is a possibility I used too many words and that he didn’t fully understand where I was going with that analogical, theoretic story.

  “Let me clarify. You did great, amazing, better than I could have hoped. If you stay with me a little longer, I will take care of this.” I was still talking too much; it was the pain, I was having a hard time being able to communicate. I have to remember who I am talking to and when. Make it so they can understand. “Just keep protecting the girls.”

  This he understood and nodded his head.

  “Girls? How do you feel?” I directed the question to Courtney and Stephanie.

  “I’m a bit sore, but I’ll be fine,” said Stephanie.

  “Ditto,” confirmed Courtney.

  “Can you work?” I asked.

  “Right now?” Courtney asked.

  I needed to dance around my questions a little more gracefully than I was doing. “Not this moment, just soon.”

  “Oh sure,” she said.

  “This is what we do, Buster,” added Stephanie. Again, I need to realize who I am talking to when I’m talking to them, even if it’s just for my benefit of understanding.

  “Okay, good,” I said and then turned back to Bogo. “Can you help me to the bathroom, Bogo? I need to take a leak.”

  He stood and then leaned down. Putting his arm around me to help me up. He was on the right side of me, which was the opposite side of the broken ribs. I was thankful for that.

  He lifted me up and pain shot through me. I would not die, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t feel like it for a while. I looked down, and my side wasn’t caving in or anything, so my body was still intact.

  The blanket fell from my body, and I was once again exposed to the room. Seemed like a perfectly logical time to make a plea to the room. I told Bogo to hold on as I looked at the four hookers in the room.

  “Look, if anyone wants to leave, now would be the time. Give me a moment, and I will figure a way out of this, and I promise that someday I will reward your loyalty, but for right now, things might get worse before they get better. But they will get better, and we will move on to greener pastures.”

  No one said anything, and I wasn’t even sure if they had any concept of what a greener pasture was as there did not seem to be any farmland in Canny Valley. They all looked at each other.

  “We’ll be here, just tell us what to do,” said Betty, for the group.

  I nodded and looked to Bogo and motioned to the bathroom. Right before we got there, April walked up to us. She had been the only silent on through all of this.

  “Buster,” she said. Bogo stopped and waited for her to get in front of us. “Is this my fault?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Well, I mean, I was the last person you were with before this. Is it my fault?”

  “April, correlation is not causation,” I said, to which she did not respond and looked confused. I also felt a confused look cross my face. “Or vice versa, I’m not for sure that I am using that right. My point is, no, it wasn’t your fault. Again, this is from something you had no part of and started before you were with us.”

  “Okay,” she said. Still not sure I was telling the truth.

  “Trust me,” I said and smiled, “you were great last night.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  I’m finding it hard to believe this, maybe it was that I was actually naked, or that I remembered our sex last night, but I was actually starting to feel a little tingle in my groin. Broken ribs and all, this body was also built for one thing. I found this slightly relieving, actually. If I would be stuck in Canny Valley and form a harem of beautiful women, it would be nice if I could actually use that harem for my own needs.

  Maybe it’s my wants.

  Yeah... It’s wants.

  Bogo hobbled me to the bathroom, and I walked into it, gingerly. I gave him a nod to let him know he could leave me. I stood above the toilet, and as I suspected I would, pissed blood. It hurt to pee, what was it going to be like to do anything else? I’m not talking about sex; I’m talking about pretty much everything else. I was having a hard time just standing there. I hadn’t even tried to walk on my own yet.

  After filling the toilet with blood-drenched urine,
I closed the lid, turned around and sat down. I reached over and tapped my watch, pulling up my stats.

  H: 33 $:0 BR:64 T:71 DOM:74 PRW:82 ST: 6

  Only two things were bad here, but they were terrible. First of all, I had slept, and I wasn’t hungry so that thirty-three in health was just where I was at. Without the broken ribs, I would suspect I was in the eighties, prior to breakfast. I think it will be a while before I sniff the eighties again.

  The money was a real travesty. Luckily, I had food for a day, maybe two. Girls had clothes, and we had some supplies, plus a cart to carry it all in when we were homeless.

  Now the good news. Trust, Dominance, and Prowess were all through the roof. A lot of this, I’m sure, resulted from the April situation and how I handled that. I took a girl who was scared and alone and had never remembered seeing a dick and turned her out, so to speak.

  She was going to take a little more work; I realized that I still wasn’t comfortable putting her out on the street and I doubt she would be comfortable with that either. I’ll spend some more time with her, and there will need to be some training there. I can recruit Courtney to teach blow jobs, and maybe Stephanie could teach her some moves and how to get the most out of sex.

  I can’t believe I’m being so mercantile about this, but this was my life now. I’m going to have to play every angle while I heal. Speaking of which, sitting even hurts.

  Continuing to look at my stats, I had a hard time remembering what my Brains were listed at the last time I checked. I’m pretty sure that went up. I found the fact that I couldn’t remember where my brains were at to be very ironic.