The Long Dark Four-Way of the Soul

by Alden Odessa

  I’m Buster.

  I look at Casey; she is full on crying as I have gripped her ankle and pulled her towards me. She can’t look at me, she has her arms in front of her face, looking away. I am gripping her leg with my right hand, and my left hand has a firm hold on my dick.

  Who am I right now? What have I become?

  I look to Betty. She is staring at me. She is not smiling; she is not frowning. She has no expression at all, just a blank stare.

  We look at each other for a moment. I don’t know what to do, but I know that something is broken, something inside of me is different. Something bad.

  Betty suddenly stands and takes off all of her clothes. She gets completely naked and walks over to me hurriedly. She comes over and takes my hand. I stand up, and she leads me over to the other bed and lies down and pulls me on top of her.

  She reaches down and takes my cock in her hand, all the while looking at me. She seems different suddenly; there is something behind this, she is doing this for a reason. She is looking me deep into the eyes. She knows something is wrong.

  I look down.

  “You’re not wet,” I say, as she is trying to put my dick into her small frame.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “Do it. Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

  She says it with no passion, no desire. She is not craving me; she is not needing me.

  She is protecting me.

  She is saving me.

  28

  Sorry Is a Start

  Betty didn’t talk to me after we had finished. She got up, and she went to the bathroom and didn’t make eye contact after it had happened.

  Indeed that was all that could be done, I had nothing to say to her, at least nothing I could think of.

  I looked over at the other bed. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but Betty had saved me whatever face I was about to lose. Katie and Allie seemed unfazed. Meanwhile, Casey had pulled the covers up over her, she was crying.

  Fuck.

  She pulled the covers away from her face and looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  It surprised me that this was her first response. “No. I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I should be able to—”

  “Hey,” I said, holding up my hand to silence her before she said anything else. “It’s my fault; I went too fast with you.” I looked at the other girls. “Girls, I’m sorry to all of you, you all did fine. Casey, I should have never put you in that situation.”

  “I might just do blow jobs for a day or two, that hurt pretty bad,” said Allie.

  “I’m awfully sorry about that too,” I said as I stood up and walked over to the bed. My dick still semi-hard. Their eyes get big when they see it. “Katie, are you okay?”

  “It’s a little bigger than I am used to,” she said, pointing at my dick, making me very aware that I am still naked.

  I leaned down and grabbed my clothes up from the floor and put them on. I really don’t know how to play this entire situation. I can’t look weak in front of the girls, but I certainly don’t want to apply my dominance over them that way. I have to find a way I am comfortable with. I can’t be all their best friends all the time.

  I looked at Katie and Allie. “Get dressed girls and join the others. Casey, hang back a moment, but you can get dressed.”

  They all got out of the bed and did as they were told. Once Casey was dressed I sat her down in the chair so I could face her.

  “This isn’t a charity,” I said. “I am happy to have you with us. But you have to earn your keep.”

  “I know,” she said while I sat there feeling like I had this exact same conversation already this week.

  “You have to work in some capacity if this isn’t something you are comfortable with you have to let me know right now.”

  “I’ll be ready. This was just—fast. I don’t remember anything past eight hours ago or so.”

  This game moved so fast; I have to keep reminding myself that to everybody else this isn’t a game. This is real life. Her real life only started about the same time I was in a shootout at The Show-Tel Motel.

  I looked at her, this time really looked at her, without a boner she looked even worse. How was I going to make any money off of her? She had a big chest, but that was about all that she offered. What had come over me that made me want to assault her?

  There was something rising in me, all day, something from deep within. I was becoming something new, something I didn’t like.

  But I did like it.

  I welcomed it in, earlier with the other girls, I had been animalistic. Taking from them what I wanted, and that was continuing into tonight. It was getting worse. In my mind, I was only taking what was mine.

  Something is going on, and I need to get to the bottom of it.

  Looking at her now I knew she would be no good to me for the purpose of earning, she would have to be support staff of some sort. Another cleaning lady I had to find a bed for.

  “Laundry,” I said.

  “What?”

  “We will go through a good amount of laundry, the line of work we are in. I will need you to do the laundry, I will show you where the laundry mat is, and if you have questions on how to do it, Augustus and Beatrice will show you.”

  “O-okay,” she managed to say.

  “That’s your job, make sure it is always done, and we won’t have any problem. We may have other work for you as well, but I’m not going to be selling you.”

  She just stared at me blankly.

  “If you ever want to—you know—tell me, and I will make arrangements, but you have to earn on that side of things if you don’t earn; it’s back to laundry. Do you understand all of this?”

  “Yes,” she said. Finding the words. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I’m sorry I scared you. I won’t ask you to do that with me if you don’t want it, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “All right, now march your happy ass along and get with the other girls. If you need anything, ask Betty or April until Augustus and Beatrice get back. They will probably be over at The Show-Tel for a while, getting it cleaned up, so you’ll be doing most of the cleaning around here until they get back.”

  “Okay.”

  She got up and did as I told her. I sat alone on the edge of the bed for a moment, knowing that I would have to go face the music for what had just transpired between Betty and me.

  She didn’t want what had happened; she had no desire for me at that moment. She didn’t seem to get any pleasure from watching me with other women, but she knew she had to stop what was happening to them. Stop me from doing what I was about to do. She knew I had to finish what I had started.

  Even though she hadn’t necessarily wanted it, she took the brunt of my aggression so they didn’t have to. I saw the pain on her face as I laid on top of her; it was hurting her, but I kept going. It didn’t take long. She had soothed me as it happened. She was in so much pain from what I was doing to her, but still, she had run her hands up and down my arms and back. Letting me finish inside her.

  She was helping me even though it was not something she wanted. She was there for me. I had a feeling she would be there for me no matter what happened. No matter when it happened.

  She was my most loyal girl.

  My friend.

  I walked to the bathroom and knocked. I heard nothing at first, and then I noticed a meek, ‘Come in.’

  I opened the door, and she was standing by the sink, still naked and crying.

  My friend.

  My friend who I had just caused so much pain, not just physical. I know the physical pain didn’t bother her; she had been through much worse. But she trusted me. I had seen it in her eyes as I had been on top of her, there had been so much sadness that hadn’t been there since the first night we were together.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I learned a long time ago that the word sorry didn’t fix all the problems you had wit
h somebody when you did them wrong.

  But it was a start.

  It would be hard to get the words out. Seeing her standing there, feeling all alone, shivering from her sadness. Sorry, it’s a start—

  “Betty,” I started, but I didn’t get the next part out. She turned and lunged into my chest. Throwing her arms around me, holding me as tight as she possibly could. She let herself go in that moment. She let it all out, real tears, real sobbing. I thought she had been crying before, but she had been holding it in as if she had been waiting for me to hold her.

  Just like that first night, she needed me. She needed me to be gentle and caring. She just needed me to be there.

  She needed Doug right now, and she didn’t even know who he was.

  I was forgetting him too.

  29

  Missing Girl

  I am of two minds. Literally.

  I don’t know who I am anymore. Every minute of every day, the person I thought I was is leaving me. This person. Doug. This is a person who I know. This is a person who I know that I am, but that may genuinely be a lifetime ago.

  Every moment I spend in this game, in this reality, is another moment that this new persona takes over. Another moment that this reality takes over my old one.

  I have to remind myself constantly that I’m not from here. It feels like every time I think about my old life I have to question whose life was it? Which one of these lives is real, and which one is the fake? Sometimes I wake up, and I forget who is the dreamer and who is the dream.

  I wanted to stop worrying about it. I wanted to stop looking at this life and wondering if I would ever go back to the old one. I made that choice earlier. I would stop worrying about it and just play the game as it was laid out before me. But I know, that if I let my guard down for one minute, for one second even, if I stop remembering who I am, the new me takes over, and I will stop being Doug altogether and only be Buster.

  Is Buster someone I wanted to be?

  What is the saying? Be careful who you pretend to be. That is a very true statement.

  The card game took place just opposite the street of the All Aces General Store. It was a dump as were all places in The Landing. All the various locations in this area seemed to be on the downside of success. Betty kept reminding me that this is not how she remembered it. Courtney, who had been here for the downfall of the area concurred.

  She said it directly resulted from the drugs that were taking over The Lower Bottoms. Although it had never been a nice place, the spread of this new drug “Splice,” was making it uninhabitable.

  I stopped by The Print Shop and picked up my cards; they turned out better than I had thought. They looked like cheap business cards from the 80s, the kind that didn’t have a lot of frills to them, just a cream print stock with black lettering. No images, no gold trim, no fancy designs or digital printing. Only a small business card letting the customer know what I sold and where I sold it. It’s all I needed, and the quality was there, and the print stock was firm. I put them in my pocket and planned to hand these out to any man I met tonight. I even left a few with the owner of The Print Shop, to give customers.

  Not that he seemed to have many.

  With me was Bogo, Courtney, Stephanie, Emily, and Bridget. I didn’t know how I felt about two of my girls being on the larger side, but Bridget and Courtney were still in my top four. I would showcase my top four girls until I could get the others working, it’s possible that Allie or Katie could end up taking one of their places. It was, however, unlikely. I still needed to come up with a higher class of hooker in order to really offer a good product that would play anywhere else besides The Lower Bottoms.

  You play with the cards you’re dealt.

  Speaking of which.

  The four men sat at a round table, joking and taking each other's money. It was not a high stakes game, and the accommodations reflected that. They had no electricity; the game was lit with two candles that seemed to fill the room with a warm glow.

  When we showed up the men all took notice, and they seemed to increase their rate of play, either that, or they all seemed to suddenly lose their interest in the game itself.

  The girls circled the room; they would put their hands on the players and casually tease them.

  This was wearing them down, and they started to care less and less about the cards in their hands and more and more about the dicks in their pants. Stephanie was the one that finally broke them down and ended the game.

  “This is so boring. Why don’t we play strip poker?” she recommended.

  “Fold,” one man said, throwing his cards into the center of the table. The other men laughed and then all did the same.

  The next hour of the night was a fascinating thing to watch. These men liked women, but they also loved cards. They seemed just as into the game of getting them naked as they did the game itself. The girls, it turned out, were pretty savvy card players. Except for Bridget, who lost immediately and soon had no clothes left to take off. Instead, she just leaned up on the table and rested her giant tits on the table itself. This distracted the men so much that eventually the girls had to start lying about their cards or folding when they clearly knew they would win.

  Courtney proved so adept at card playing she seemed to manipulate the game itself. She was the last girl standing against three of the men who were still in it. She worked it so she could get all but one man out and down to his boxers.

  Then she “lost” the hand.

  Eight people and only underwear on one of them. And then it got messy.

  Courtney was immediately laid claim to by the winner of the game. He was clearly turned on by her ability to play cards. He was smitten, and he couldn’t seem to wait to get his hands on her. He made the first move, almost jumping across the table at her and she didn’t hold back. All the men seemed to be nervous. I don’t know the reasoning for this, but they had been reserved. Either none of them wanted to make the first move, or this man was the leader. Once he made a break for Courtney, it was on. Every man grabbed a girl and did their thing.

  Courtney instantly took of the man's boxers and sucked his dick. All the other girls followed their lead and got on their knees in front of whatever man was standing next to them. The rest of the night lead into a natural progression from there.

  Bogo and I stayed out of the way. I looked at him, and he was expressionless, just watching the scene unfold. I was watching to see if he was paying more attention to Courtney and it any jealousy was forming there. If he was jealous, he did not let it show, he kept a stoic face and stayed as far out of sight as possible for a man that large in a small space.

  I did the same.

  I was doing my best not let my presence be felt, but I don’t think it would have mattered. There was a reason that these were my four top girls and it wasn’t just because of their looks; they knew how to work a room.

  Bogo had shown no jealousy whether he was or wasn’t. I did not show any jealousy, but I most certainly was. I should have been watching the room, but mostly I was just watching Emily. Deep inside me, I felt a particular hatred to the man that currently had his dick in her mouth, and that hatred turned into a rage as she stood up, turned around and bent over. He got behind her and pushed his miserable excuse for a dick into her pussy. He started pumping her, and he was so shitty at it that not even a glimpse of pleasure crossed Emily’s face.

  She looked up and scanned the room; she scanned it until her eyes got to me. We looked at each other deeply, and she smiled. Was she teasing me or was she smiling because she was earning for me? Did she think this pleased me? I wasn’t sure, but I know I could not be possessive at this moment. As much as I wanted her to be mine, she wasn’t, not in a romantic sense, she was my employee, and she was doing her job. She was doing her job well, and I think she wanted me to acknowledge this.

  As much as it pained me to do so, I smiled at her. It was excruciating for me to do it with all the contempt I had in my heart watching th
is man fuck her. But this was all part of the deal.

  Stephanie and Emily were clearly the stars of the show as every man wanted to get a piece of them. They both bent over the table, and each man took a turn fucking each one while Courtney and Bridget were on each side, sucking the dicks of whoever wasn’t presently fucking the other two.

  If it had been difficult for me to watch one of them fuck Emily, it was tenfold painful to watch four of them.

  The deal of tonight was that these men could fuck these girls for as long as they could fuck. It was a simple deal. They got their money’s worth, and I got more than I would have with each girl individually.

  The night drug on, but still I watched over the girls, making sure that none of the men got rough with them. To their credit, they were gentlemen, a term I use with the loosest of bearings.

  The night ended when the men all gathered around Emily and took turns coming on her creamy white ass.

  I was so disgusted by this that I almost threw up. But I watched it; I watched it as four different men took turns jerking off on my best girl's ass cheeks.

  I wanted to kill them all.

  I turned away and walked out the front door of the room. I looked at Bogo and told him I would be right back. I needed air.

  Outside this dump it was quiet. There were a few people in the street, either going to or coming from the market. This place was dead. These filthy men, who all looked like they hadn’t showered in months where the clientele I would have to expect in The Landing.

  I took a few deep breaths, knowing I had to go back into the room and continue the appearance that I was a proprietor and I had to continue to promote. Make sure that these men came to see me and only me for their needs. I didn’t think I would be able to look them in the eye.

  I don’t know why tonight affected me the way that it did. This was my job; I couldn’t get possessive in any way, shape, or form. These were not my friends; they were my servants. I understand now why the girls all referred to past pimps as their “owners.” I had to start treating them as women who not just worked for me, but were mine.