The Long Dark Four-Way of the Soul

by Alden Odessa

  Also, this place being dark and uninviting would not serve me and my purposes for running a brothel out of it. I wanted people to know, tourists or otherwise, that this was a safe place to get laid and to party. Not a place to buy drugs. Speaking of which that was something else I would have to work on while I was down here. Cleaning drugs off of the street. I couldn’t have people spending their money on that when there was perfectly good pussy, just around the corner.

  I was starting to think, and talk like, a pimp. Not my intentions, but the hand I was dealt.

  I needed a place to stage, this wasn’t very far from South Light and was just a quick trip to The Thrill Seeker, which seemed to be the main draw around here. With any luck and a little advertising, I could draw men my way and into my rooms, here at the lovely Side Light.

  Behind me I heard some high-pitched grunting, almost sounded girl-ish, so I slightly turned my head to see what was happening. Making sure he wasn’t hurting Stephanie in any way.

  I saw that he was still standing, and she was still on her knees. He had his hands on her head and had his backside arched forward; he was squealing in delight as he was coming in her mouth. She had her hands on his hips, holding him steady as he did so.

  He started to tremor as he finished coming and then relaxed, moving his hands from her head to her shoulders. She pulled away and wiped her mouth; leaning in to lick a little more off the top of his dick. She looked up at him, smiling, and patted him on the ass.

  Two minutes later I had three keys and an I.O.U for sixty dollars.

  7

  Room Assignments

  The first thing I did was talk to the two girls in front of the motel. The two that had begged me to have sex with them so they could have a warm place to sleep tonight. They were desperate and needy.

  Or as I was thinking: My type of hooker.

  I asked them their names. Bridget and Emily. I didn’t bother to size them up any more than I had. I already knew looking at them dirty like this would give me an adverse opinion, plus, they were lit like shit. More than likely they would not look any better in bright light either, but I had to give them a chance to clean up before I could really judge them.

  “Okay girls, you will have to share a bed, but you will have one. Though I doubt it will be comfortable.”

  They looked at me with wide eyes.

  “Both of us?” Bridget said.

  “Yes, but there are rules.”

  “We’ll do whatever you need us to do. Anal’s fine.” Bridget said.

  Emily kicked in. “You can hit us if you want.”

  My head jerked back in a shocked manner. “What? No. No, none of that. That’s not going to happen to you with me.”

  “What about him?” Emily pointed to Bogo.

  “What? I don’t—” they did not understand what I was trying to say to them. “No, I mean, if you want. Just listen will you, let me finish.”

  The both stopped speaking and listened intently. The rest of my harem seemed to be interested in what was going on as well.

  “I have three rooms. You will be in room five with Courtney and Stephanie,” I pointed out who those people were. “Betty,” pointing again, “will come by to see you. She will explain what is going on and she will help clean you up, bring you some food and cleaning products as I doubt this place has any. I’m new to The Landing, and I take really good care of my girls. But first are any of you with anyone else?”

  “Like who?” Bridget said.

  “Another pimp, or owner. Are you girls on your own?”

  “Just each other,” Emily said. Betty had told me, as had Courtney, that girls stuck close together down here, but that still wasn’t much protection.

  “Okay, good. Now listen, cause this part’s important. If you want to stay with me and have protection and a place to stay you will do what I say. If you have questions of what I would say in my absence, you can ask any other one of the girls. Do you understand me so far?”

  They nodded their heads.

  “I’m not my usual self, I’m not usually this curt, but I’ve got about a half dozen cracked ribs, and I’m tired as all hell. So are my girls, they had a long night. We only have a few rules around here, but chief amongst them is ‘be nice to each other,’ got it?” they nodded. “Good,” I turned to Courtney and Stephanie, “Girls, you got that, room five. You’ll have to share the other bed.”

  They nodded and smiled, seemingly cool with it all.

  “Bogo,” I said turning to my enforcer. “You’re in room four; I want you between us. I’m guessing these walls are thin and if you hear anything bad, come running. You get your own room so you can push the two beds together, stretch out for once.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  “Don’t mention it. Betty and April, you’ll be staying with me in room three. Betty, I’m gonna need you to spend time with the new girls, teach them the ropes and help them get cleaned up.”

  “Will you be auditioning them?” asked Betty.

  “Not tonight, maybe once the ribs have healed,” I turned to April. “April, I will need you to place nursemaid while I heal. Can you handle that?”

  “Yes,” said April.

  “Courtney and Stephanie, if you need to move from your room it’s okay. I doubt these rooms are spacious and you might want to get out of there while Betty helps them. You know I don’t care what you do, but I want you to be safe. Lots of dark places here and I don’t know what to expect. Just be safe. If you’d like to help April, that’s fine, or Betty that’s fine too. Hell, if you want to keep Bogo company that’s fine too, provided he’s okay with it.”

  “Bogo cool for company,” the gentle giant said.

  “See, there ya go. I picked up a couple of decks of cards yesterday, get a cribbage game going or something. The important thing to take away from all of this, is that tonight is a night of relaxation okay? Tomorrow we work.”

  I handed them all of their keys, and as a group, we traveled to the doors of our rooms. Which weren’t much to look at from the outside, and inside it only got worse.

  8

  Everything You Could Hope for and More

  Plaster. So much plaster.

  The walls were empty wood frames with some plywood slapped over it and then plastered. I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the plaster wasn’t even painted, it was just plaster. Hard telling, there was a thick coat of dust and grime coving it.

  The beds were about what I thought they would be. Thin mattresses covered by floral print blankets. There were two beds, they had different comforters (if you could call them that) on top. Between the beds was a nightstand with the customary ashtray, however, no book of matches in this one. One of these days I would think to buy a lighter, so I always had a way of lighting my Third Stringer’s.

  I walked into the bathroom; it was dirty but appeared functional. I turned the nozzle on the sink, and the wall shook but eventually leveled off, and a stream of brown water came out. I gave it a moment to see if the brown water turned into clear water. It took a while, but it cleared up. Might be okay for bathing, but I don’t know that I am going to trust it to drink. If I had the money, I would walk over to the bar I saw just behind The Side Light and have some gut rot. I had to think about appearances though. I couldn’t let my harem see me spending our money on frivolous things.

  I walked back into the main room in time to see Betty sit on the bed. When she did so, a cloud of dust ejected itself from the mattress. She coughed, as did April.

  This place was a dump; there was just no way of looking at the situation through rose-colored glasses. There was only one good thing I hadn’t planned on. The rooms were connected. There was a door that led from one room to the other. Lockable from each side. So each room had their own locked door, and all I had to do was go to each room and unlock the doors. That way we could travel freely through the three rooms without having to go outside.

  “Betty, I need you to get to Emily and Bridget quickly. I want t
o get them dressed up, or rather cleaned up, tonight so I can see what I’ve got on my hands.”

  “Sure.”

  “Didn’t we see a laundry mat around the corner?”

  “Yes, it didn’t look like it got a lot of use.”

  “And I’m sure it uses filtered water of the highest quality,” I said, and then started pulling off the sheets. It surprised me there were no bloodstains on the mattress. This one, at least, was free of questionable stains. I doubt I would be as lucky with all six beds. “I will not make you all sleep on this filth. Much less fuck on it.”

  “I’ve fucked on worse,” Betty said. I looked up and noticed that April looked scared. It would be shocking if she didn’t.

  “I’m sure you have, but hopefully that statement remains past tense.”

  Betty stood up and pulled the sheets off of the bed. I then went to the next two rooms to continue pulling off sheets and blankets and also unlocking the door in each room so we could move freely.

  I walked into Bogo’s room. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, which sank to the ground beneath his concentrated weight on its edge.

  “Bogo, let’s get these sheets off. They haven’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration.”

  “Who is Clinton?”

  “A man who would have used rooms like this.”

  He stood and helped me pull off the sheets. It was still not nighttime, so far as I could tell. I think we checked out of The Falls around what would be considered noon. The trip down here had only taken a little over an hour, so we had time; although I think the team was pretty tired. It could have been nerves. I don’t think they were feeling great about our situation and unfortunately, it kept getting worse.

  “I’m going to take these sheets to the laundry around the corner. I’ll need you to stay here and guard the girls.”

  “Bogo not fail again,” he said, still feeling bad about my situation. Speaking of which, I should at some point find a way to wrap my ribcage. I didn’t see any medical stores along the way, or any time that I had been here. “Is boss okay?”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, and I was telling the truth, although it did still hurt. But it didn’t hurt as much as it should. I had to remember that I was a digital construct. I wasn’t flesh and blood, no matter how much I felt like it. Physics and biology may in fact work differently in the game. I did not understand how long it would take me to heal, but I don’t know I needed to do anything about it. Other than complain internally.

  Bogo pulled off the rest of the sheets as I went over and unlocked both of his doors, one on the east side and one on the west side of the room. The entries to our room faced South, towards South Light, which was the entire reason I selected this place.

  “I’m going to leave these doors open, that way we can move freely,” I said to him. About that time, the other room’s door unlocked. Betty had gone in there and unlocked it; we now had the ability to roam freely through the three rooms without having to go into the darkness of The Lower Bottoms.

  I walked into the girl's room and looked; it was the same. I addressed the room and gave orders what was to happen.

  “Here’s the scoop, guys,” I began. They all gave me their attention. “April and I are taking the bedding to the laundry mat to get it cleaned. This place is bad enough, and you need not sleep on these sheets.”

  Courtney and Stephanie instantly got up and pulled the sheets off of the bed. They were the proactive type. Emily and Bridget continued looking confused. They really didn’t understand why nobody was having sex with them yet.

  The life of a hooker.

  “Emily and Bridget, take off your clothes and hand them to me. I will wash them while Betty washes you. You will find we have a selection of soaps, shampoos, perfumes and other lady type stuff like lotions and what not.”

  The rooms were dimly lit, but I could see them a little better as they got undressed, but I was still going to reserve judgment until they had been cleaned and primped.

  “Courtney and Stephanie,” they turned to me, pulling off the last of the sheets. “You can come with April and me, or you can stay here and relax. Bogo is staying, so you’ll be safe. You two did all the work last night, so in my mind, you can do whatever you want today and tonight.”

  They looked at each other and thought about it. “I’ll come along,” Courtney said.

  “Me too,” Stephanie said.

  “Great, we’ll leave momentarily,” I turned my attention to Betty. “Betty, is there anything else you need from me, for the girls?”

  “Nope, I’ve got all I need. And Bogo. We’ll be fine.”

  I looked at Emily and Bridget, who was now naked and put their clothing on the pile of laundry. These clothes were disgusting, who knows how long it had been since they were washed. I looked up at them, and as much as I was trying to not judge too prematurely, it was hard not to. Bridget was short and round with large tits and a flabby ass. Looked like she might be cute in the face at least once she was clean. Emily was average height and had solid c-cup breasts, and they were nice actually. Even though there was a dirt-line across them, where her top had been. She was thinner but still had a little meat on her. I think she would be my preferred of the two options. We’ll see after Betty works her magic.

  I stopped looking at them as I didn’t want to think of them in this way when it came time to actually audition their sex.

  Bogo pulled the cart into the room, the one we had been carrying supplies in. “Bogo empty cart,” he said. Bogo was simple, but he wasn’t stupid.

  “Thanks Bogo,” I said. “April, can you grab the laundry and load it up?”

  “We’ll help,” Courtney said. Then she and Stephanie went to get the rest of the sheets from the other rooms.

  The team was starting to come together. “We’ll have to get one of these rooms cleaned up so that we can entertain... guests.”

  “I can work on that boss,” said Bogo.

  “Great,” I looked at Courtney and Stephanie. “Would either of you like to stay and help Bogo clean up?”

  “I will,” Courtney said and then looked to Stephanie. “If that’s cool with you?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she replied.

  “Before we get to the laundry, I will run up to the market and see if there are any cleaning products we can afford.”

  “Not in the market, but remember we saw that all-purpose grocery-hardware-slash-everything store earlier?”

  “Good memory, I will check it out. We need detergent anyway,” I said. How the fuck did I sign up for a game that promised a better than the real thing sexual experience and then end up coordinating cleaning a shitty motel and doing laundry!

  Fuck my life.

  “April, Stephanie, come with me. Everyone else, we’ll be right back.”

  9

  A Conscious Effort to Stop Worrying About It

  All Aces General Store was far from all aces in my book.

  It was large, I’ll give it that. It appeared spacious, but this may have more to do with the fact that most of its shelves were empty.

  I wasn’t looking for a big box retail store here, but the place had rows and rows of empty space. It did, however, have what I was looking for, which was a box of detergent. It led me to think about my situation with the motel. Let’s say I wanted to paint; there were only a few cans in this store. One white and one brown. How could I repaint? Could they special order more, with more colors? Also, these beds in the motel were shit. Where would I go to get new ones were I so inclined? Was there a mattress store in Canny Valley? Did they deliver?

  I needed to compartmentalize these existential questions I had. These were all questions I was not just going to open my menu screen and be able to get answers to. They were only questions I could answer by continuing on with the game. Honestly, I had to stop treating it like a game and just treat it as life.

  Because that’s where I’m at now. This is my life.

  I had a job to do. I don’t kn
ow what any of it means; I don’t really know what to do with my harem once I build it, but I have discovered that my harem is growing.

  Is this a harem? Or am I a pimp? Are the two things the same thing? I don’t know, all I know is that it’s best just to stop worrying about it and move on with my life and accept that I may never make it home. This may be my home. I may just be becoming a new NPC.

  I really wish I had created a better name than Buster Rockknocker.

  I grabbed the detergent with the intentions of finding the clerk to check out, but as soon as I took it off of the shelf I saw a little red -4$ out of the corner of my eye.

  Purchasing is automated, but the payroll is not. Naturally. Either way, it made my mission here a bit easier, which was good because I wanted to get back outside. I had left the girls outside with our laundry as I didn’t want to navigate the store while dragging the cart behind us.

  I grabbed a few other cleaning supplies for the motel as they had probably already gone through what supplies we had already doing the cleaning I had left them with.

  I walked to the front door and met back up with the girls. Stephanie was talking to a short and pudgy little man. He saw me and then got nervous. I lifted my hand to stop him.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said to him and the girls turned to notice me.

  “I was just speaking with this fine-looking young woman here,” he said.

  “Stephanie is one of my finest women, but she’s only a taste.”

  “Of what?”

  I paused, I had a potential buyer here, and needed to handle it delicately. “I’m bringing good damn women to town, mister. You like women?”

  “Hell yes, I really like this one.”

  “You like redheads?”

  “I like ‘em all, but I really like redheads.”