CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“Yeah,” Ellen said, her expression growing darker. “When you monetize fucking everything it fucks everything up eventually. We monetized medicine, so now it’s expensive and therefore most people are either straight up locked out of it or it’s incredibly difficult to navigate.”
“Plus overworked doctors,” Gabe murmured.
“Which loops right back to capitalism,” Ellen agreed.
“There’s also good old fashion sexism in there,” Liz said. “I imagine you might have actually had an opportunity at some point, mentioned this problem to a doctor, and his response was more or less ‘you’re fine, get over it’.”
“Yeah,” Krystal growled.
“Okay, we’ll get that all set up today. Gabe?” Ellen asked, returning the spotlight back to him.
“Right. So. Where are we at with our passions that we give a shit about?” he asked, looking around. When no one spoke up, he decided to. “I guess I’ll go first. Um. Well, I got paid for December yesterday and it was a lot. Twenty five hundred.”
“Holy shit,” Krystal said, sitting up straighter. “Seriously? Wait, how much have you made overall so far?”
“There’s a one month delay, so these are the numbers I’ve earned so far. October got me seven hundred, November earned a thousand, December twenty five hundred, and last month twenty six hundred,” he said.
“Holy shit!” Krystal repeated. “How the fuck-that’s amazing.”
“It’s luck, mostly,” Gabe replied.
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s half right,” Ellen said. They both looked at her. “Gabe has talent and he has been putting in the work, but that doesn’t always get you success. It does take luck.”
“I also had the luck to meet you and Holly, who helped completely revamp my entire career like three months in.”
“I really hope you guys can unfuck my own operation,” Krystal murmured.
“I’m convinced we can,” Gabe replied. “I mean, you’ve been implementing that, right? Wait, don’t answer yet. We need to do this one at a time. Although I guess I’m done.”
“You are not,” Liz replied firmly. “What are you working on and what’s in the future?”
“Well, as I mentioned already, I blasted through My Tall Blonde. Need to get that edited...you’re both going to want in on that, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Krystal and Liz both replied immediately.
“Okay, we’re going to need to get like an open-source document that we can all access at any time, so you can all do your edits at the same time and in real time,” he said.
“Yes, so annoying, having five girls interested in your dick and your writing career,” Chloe replied, rolling her eyes.
He turned to face her abruptly and locked eyes with her. “Watch it.”
She froze in place, her mouth half-open, then began blush. “Whatever,” she mumbled, making the others laugh.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Gabe continued, turning back, “I’m very appreciative. But after that, I’m going to do another sequel series called My Submissive Redhead.”
“Wonder who that’s about…” Holly murmured with a small smile.
“Wait, so are you like doing one for all of us?” Liz asked suddenly.
“Um...that’s the idea, basically, yeah.”
“What’s mine? Or are we not going in order of addition to the harem?” Chloe asked.
“We are,” he replied. “And yours is My Bratty Goth.”
Ellen snorted. “Appropriate.”
Chloe crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’d better do me justice.”
“I’ll fucking do you all right,” he replied, and her blushing got worse.
“And mine?” Krystal asked.
“My Tatted Stoner.”
She laughed. “Perfect.”
“And you are going to be My Jacked Tomboy,” he said, looking at Liz.
“I mean that’s definitely accurate,” she said.
“When are we getting to our shit?” Krystal asked, growing more serious.
“I’m going to work with you alongside writing Holly’s story. So, really soon. Honestly, once we get more settled, so probably the next few days we can begin,” he replied.
“Oh...cool, then.” She paused. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine Krystal.”
“Have you and Gabe decided on a story?” Liz asked.
“We have…” Krystal replied, looking at him.
“I’ve pretty much wrapped up where I am, you can go.”
“Okay. Um. Cool. Um…” She sighed. “This is still hard to talk about, but I should. So I’ve pretty much just spent the whole month actually implementing all the shit we talked about.
I ended up just destroying the first pen name because it was such a mess, and I cleaned up and reworked everything that I thought was salvageable to just offer as free shit for the next two pen names.
I did more research on the keywords and the synopsis shit, got new covers that look less like crap, and I’ve been writing my ass off trying to finish up any loose ends I left. ”
“How many do you have left?” Gabe asked.
“I have a novella to write after I finish writing the third novel in a trilogy I’ve been working on for like a year now.
But that’s it. And I’m going to go hard and get them done as fast as I can because honestly it just doesn’t matter.
I’m considering not even doing the novella.
I’ve been kind of holding off on revamping my monster girl fucker pen because it feels like it’d make the most sense to do a sort of soft relaunch, like what you did when Ellen started helping you. ”
“That makes sense,” Gabe replied, nodding. “And...I guess, lemme see the numbers for the series you need to write the novella for. Maybe your gut is right and it’s a waste of time.”
“Okay. And I’ve settled on an idea I want to do for our collab.
I want it to be about a love triangle, but not a bullshit one where no one’s getting laid but a better one where the main character is fucking both of them and they’re both trying to outfuck each other.
Like it’s a regular human guy as the protagonist and he ends up caught between a demon chick and a vampire chick and they both want him and I think it should be called Horns & Fangs. ”
“That sounds awesome,” Gabe replied.
“Yeah, that’s fucking hot,” Chloe murmured.
“Sweet,” Krystal said, smiling and relaxing a little. “Also Ellen needs to help me revamp my lame-ass website.”
“I can do that, but you need to eat me in return,” Ellen replied.
“Fucking make me!”
“Okay.”
“Let’s...stay focused,” Gabe said. “Who’s next? Liz?”
“Me, oh shit. I’ve got nothing. I mean, okay, not nothing, but it’s still such early stage shit. I need to actually finish buying my equipment, getting things set up, put together an actual plan for this shit. I need more time, so...pass,” she replied.
“Fair. Chloe?”
“Well...I’ve been streaming when I can. Which is obviously more now that I don’t have a job.
I’ve been working with Ellen and got my website totally cleaned up and not looking like crap.
Organized a library of all the games I’ve played, with links and better thumbnails.
I’ve been posting my finished game series on a few other sites and it’s been getting some traction.
I locked down one of those two indie game devs and I should get access to this like pixelated horror maze game.
It’s basic but cool. I’ll be able to do a playthrough next month. And…”
“And…?” Gabe pressed.
She made an odd face and sat up straighter. “Okay, I’ve been keeping this a secret because it’s so unrealistic and unlikely to happen, but I’ve been talking with the devs making Recovery II and trying to get early access.”
“Fuck,” Gabe and Ellen said at the same time. “Have you made any inroads at all?” he asked.
“Yes,” Chloe replied. “I’ve managed to actually get a response from them, saying that they would consider my proposal. I wouldn’t have brought it up, but they sent me a new message a few days ago basically saying, ‘We haven’t forgotten about you, you’ll hear from us soon’. So...yeah.”
“Fucking shit, Chloe, that’s incredible,” Gabe murmured.
“You guys seem really into this,” Liz said.
“Recovery is like mine and Ellen’s favorite game,” Gabe replied.
“It’s pretty high on my list,” Chloe agreed.
“It looks pretty cool, honestly. I watched Ellen play it for a while,” Holly said.
“Guess I should finally play it,” Krystal murmured.
“Well, I think that’s great, Chloe,” Liz said.
“You don’t like video games?” Chloe asked.
“I like a good arcade session every now and then but yeah, not really. I more like doing physical stuff or reading, watching movies or cartoons...do you really think they’d let you play it early?”
“It’s very possible, it’s how it’s done,” Chloe replied. “But...I also have like two thousand regular viewers.”
“Hey, that’s twice as many as when we met,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, since I started doing it more regularly, there was quite the uptick. I also think one of my reactions to something in a game went a little viral. It was that time I screamed my ass off a few weeks ago.”
Gabe laughed. “Dear God, yes. That was very startling.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! It just legit scared the shit out of me, that game had awesome atmosphere!”
“I mean it’s fine. Well, definitely keep me posted on that.”
“Yeah,” Ellen agreed immediately.
“I will, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“All right, Holly?” he asked, because she had a little smile on her face that said she had something.
“My website is set up, my services as an indie photographer are on offer and...I’ve had my first job offer,” she said.
“Oh man, congrats, babe!” he said, leaning in and kissing her.
She laughed and then laughed again when Ellen did the same thing.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling and reddening in the face a little.
“It’s nothing crazy, like a hundred bucks.
This couple is trying to sell this old, abandoned house they inherited to a fixer-upper buyer, but I guess they’re out of state and reluctant to come out unless they have good photographic documentation of exactly what they’re getting.
So I need to go there and take a lot of photos. ”
“That’s a pretty perfect first job,” Gabe said. “When is it? And where?”
“On the north edge of town, near the farmlands. It’s like twenty minutes from here. Deadline is two weeks from now but they said sooner is better. I was hoping to go do it sometime in the near future, like the next few days.”