[Vol. 4 pt. 15]
“So, that’s what happened,” I said, sitting on the couch in my living room. In real life, too. It was always nice to spend some time in the real world with my mom rather than spend all of it in a virtual world surrounded by beautiful, virtual women.
“Aren’t games supposed to be fun?” my mom asked in response. “That sounds like way too much drama for a video game.”
“Well, that’s just something that comes with social games like MMOs. Real life drama always leak into them no matter how hard you try to avoid it.”
“You should play more shooters. Those are the good games. Especially now with all this VR tech. Let me tell you, kid. Back in the day, I had to play with a controller still. I had to actually run around with joy sticks and click buttons to jump. Slicing somebody’s neck open from behind was a generic animation that played out the exact same way every single time you did it. Now? Now we get to sneak up behind somebody, jump onto their back, slice their neck open, and laugh while riding their corpse to the ground.”
“You’re so edgy that it hurts.”
“You can even smoke while doing it! Nothing beats being able to smoke without having any of the real consequences from it. Sneaking around a battlefield, slicing the throats of camping snipers open while holding a cig in your mouth—it’s great. We should play an FPS together sometime.”
“I think—I think I might have to pass on that.”
“Oh, come on, we never play anything together anymore. Oh! You could even invite your girlfriends! Come on, me, you, Lily, and Akorya! Seeing as how you were lame and didn’t bring them over here for your little vacation, we should all meet up together in a game and play together.”
“Have you completely forgotten what happened the last time we did that?”
As soon as I asked that, she burst out into laughter while holding her hand over her gut. “That was great! Everybody thought I was your girlfriend!”
“Yeah! And then you actually started acting like one by clinging all over me and hugging my arm! Do you have any idea how awkward that was for me?!”
My embarrassing memories only made her laugh even harder as she almost fell off the couch from just how hard she was laughing. “It—it was too funny, I couldn’t resist. I got to make a bunch of young boys jealous while making my son feel embarrassed at the same time. It was a win-win for me!”
“And a lose-lose for me!”
“Ahh… that was too good. And don’t act like you haven’t taken advantage of people thinking that before. Remember all the times when you first started making money that you wanted to go out on couples’ nights at the theaters with me because couples got discounts and everybody thought we were one?”
“I—I was young and wanted to save money. I would rather not lie about us being a couple and not save a few dollars now.”
“Aww. But we’d even loop our arms together! That was so cute, and it always made me happy. Don’t you want to make your mother happy?”
“I’ll hold your arm like that again when you’re an old lady.”
“Sucks for you that I’m never getting old then. I really will become a cyborg before I let myself get all old and wrinkly.”
“What about those wrinkles under your eyes?”
“What about those baby pictures I have of you that I’m sure your girlfriends would love to see?”
“You—you are quite the negotiator. Alright, I yield. Anyways.” Time to change the subject. “How’s Rachel been? She’s been ignoring my texts lately.”
“Oh? She always replies to me.” My mom nudged me with her shoulder and flashed a smug smile at me. “Aww… my little Damian still doesn’t have the clingy little sister he’s always wanted.”
“I—it’s not like I want her to be clingy or anything. But, you know, I do love her. I’d like to stay in touch more than we do, but it’s hard when she leaves me on read all the time.”
“I don’t think she ever got over the incident.”
My entire body shivered. “Oh, god, why did you have to remind me about that? Knowing about that is as bad as her doing it.”
And once again, my mom was cracking up to the point where she couldn’t even talk.
The incident… was something that I desperately wished I would be able to forget about. Both me and Rachel wanted nothing more than to forget, but… it was something that would probably forever be burned into our memories.
Back when I first got into porn, I did some amateur videos where my face was never shown and my real name was never mentioned unless somebody specifically looked into the credits. Only my performance name was shown.
My sister… she… she found those videos.
And she watched all of them to the point where she looked forward to every single new video coming out underneath my performance name.
Then one came out with my face showing.
The screams from her room… lasted on and off for hours that night. She then refused to look at me for weeks, wouldn’t leave her room if I was outside of my room, and she ran out of the house anytime I came out of my room while she was downstairs. She did everything possible to erase me from her existence.
We only found out the truth about what the reason was when we sat her down for a serious talk and forced her to open up to us since me and my mom were genuinely worried.
And the result of that?
My mom fell off her chair from laughing, and I wanted to scream just like my little sister did when she first found out.
“God,” my mom said, trying to stop herself from laughing, “I can’t imagine how awkward that has to be for both of you. Well, at least you never did any of those ‘step sibling’ videos. Imagine how much more awkward it would have been if you were making videos pretending to be somebody’s big brother, and she was watching those.”
“Please,” I said, “please don’t make me think about how much worse it could have gotten. And you know… I was actually offered a role in a few of those, but I couldn’t since I was just imagining what it would be like to be with somebody who is actually my little sibling. Even if it’s only a ‘step sibling.’ Also, I’m pretty sure she would legitimately be trying to kill you if she could hear anything that you’re saying right now.”
“Ah… that’s too funny. My stomach and chest hurt from laughing now. Anyways… she’s doing fine. Her and her boyfriend have gotten into some fights lately I guess, but she says that they’re always mature and talk through their problems even if things get a bit heated.”
“Is she safe?”
“Of course. Don’t worry, she’s assured me that the fights never get violent or abusive or anything like that. They’re just, you know, normal fights. A bit of raising voices and that’s it. You know, that’s probably part of why she’s not talking to you. If you find out about it then you’re going to hate him.”
“It’s not like I’m going to hate him if they’re just having small fights.”
“Yes you will.”
“I—”
“Promise you don’t suddenly dislike him more now just because they’ve gotten into some arguments?”
I looked away. “No.”
My mom sighed and poked the back of my head. “See? You’re too protective of her. One, things are awkward because of that… that incident,” she started laughing again but stopped herself by clearing her throat, “and two, you’re too protective. You have to give her space, not worry about everything she does, and have some faith in her. You’re not always worrying about your girlfriends, are you?”
“Well, no. But… they’re adults and I have faith in them to make smart decisions.”
“And? Rachel’s an adult now, too. Don’t forget that. You should start acting like an actual brother instead of her father.”
She had a point even if I didn’t want to admit it. Without our dad, I was the one who felt like I needed to take on a sort of fatherly role to take care of her, both for her sake and to make my mom’s life easier.
“I’ll stop texting her as much then,” I said.
“How much have you even been texting her?” my mom asked.
“Just… just once a day. Sometimes twice.”
“Without her replying?”
“It’s just stuff like saying good morning and that I hope she has a nice day! And to let me know if she needs anything! And… sometimes at night, if I’m not too tired, I remind her that she can call me at any time, even in the middle of the night, if she needs anything.”
“Jesus, Damian. You’re like a clingy, annoying boyfriend. I would dump a man if he ever messaged me that much. Please don’t tell me you treat your girlfriends like that.”
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t.”
“And please never treat my future grandchildren that way.”
“I’ll… try my best not to, but might need reminded every now and then.”
“Well, at least you’re honest. That’s better than denying it’s a problem at all. Anyways, like I was saying, she’s doing good. Getting good grades, in a healthy relationship, keeps me up to date with everything, and she even got herself a few scholarships from her poetry.”
“What? Seriously? She didn’t even let me know about that?”
“Alright, I might have to have a talk with her about leaving you completely in the dark. But yes, she’s even had her poetry published in a few magazines now. Our little poet is really growing into herself lately.”
“I wonder if I could pay her to write me some poetry to read to Lily and Akorya.”
“Well, if you are, get it before she’s too famous and neither of us can afford her. Oh, by the way. She still watches all of your videos—your safe ones, anyways.”
“You really didn’t have to add that last part onto there. I would have figured that out myself.”
“I know, but it’s funnier to include it. So, me, you, Lily, and Akorya. When are we going to play some games together? I promise to be gentle to them. I won’t even teabag them or anything.”
“I seriously never expected to hear my own mother promise that she wouldn’t teabag my girlfriends. I don’t think anybody has ever heard something like that from their mother before.”
“Well, I might not be able to resist if they make cute characters. Then again, as long as we all play on the same team, it’s not like I would need to teabag them anyways. Ah… there’s nothing more satisfying than slitting somebody’s throat open and then dragging your nonexistent nuts all over their face. Even better when you do it with a girl character. Makes them extra mad, too. You know how many little kids I’ve had shout at me that they’re going to fuck my mom? I’m just like, ‘Kid, I am a mom, and I’ll fuck your mom. And your dad.’”
“Mom… please don’t tell me you’re running around in online games telling little kids that you’re going to fuck their moms.”
“Oh, I absolutely am. The brats need put in their place.”
“Well, good thing you rarely ever play games anymore.”
“That’s because I have nobody to play with! The last group I played with all got boring and had little kids and don’t have the time to play anymore. They should have had kids when they were young like me instead. Now they’re old and have to spend all their time and energy on raising brats.”
“Fair. Well… I’ll let them know that you’re interested in something like that. But I’m also going to let them know that it’s probably going to be a horrible idea to play any sort of FPS with you. Maybe we can play… I don’t know, a racing game instead.”
“Ooh, I’m down for that. One of the last times I bought is this racing game where you can mod your car and install different weapons on it. I had a couple of miniguns on mine.”
“Do you play anything that isn’t excessively violent?”
“Nope. Real life is for non-violence. The virtual world is for excessive, gratuitous violence to extreme degrees. I want to rip somebody’s intestines out and eat them while teabagging the corpse of whoever I tore them from.”
“This is why it’d be a horrible idea to let them play with you. I don’t want you to traumatize them.”
“You’re just worried that they’ll like me more than you.”
“Well, you are pretty cool, but not that cool.” My phone buzzed in my pocket right as I said that. It was a Fiscord notification from Lily asking me if I could get in-game. “Speak of the devils, I’ve gotta go.”
“Don’t forget to offer them some fun, violent time with me!”
As much as I was worried about my mother traumatizing them with how she could get in FPS games… part of me also wanted to see how Lily and Akorya would handle a game like that.