Afternoon updates

After returning from your impromptu meeting, you take a seat at your desk and check your phone. Unsurprisingly, an app notification awaits you.

Maria: Affection: 26 (+11). Love: 12 (+7). Lust: 41 (+25).

Plus twenty-five lust?! Wow - she must have really liked it. Or you. Or however that works. Either way, it seems Maria is well on her way to falling for you. If Alex promotes her, that will place you in a unique position. Especially if you can further establish the dynamic of your being in control. You have no desire to be in such a dominant position, but you can't help but recognize how powerful it makes you feel - how natural it all was in the moment. You remember her words and her body's reaction to you. She was already in need of what you gave her. The app only spurred her along. It only spurred you along.

You think of Nadia and Karina, and your relationships with them. With Mia, Ana. You're juggling a lot of women now, more than you ever thought possible, and you're sure none of them would appreciate finding out about the others, barring your daughter and her friend. You'll need to find a way around that. Maria... Donna... It's not like you love them, after all. They're only a means to an end. A means to solving the problems riddling your family and bringing you back together. But they are only two of six. Six! An involuntary shudder wracks you. Six women in nearly as many days. And how rapidly your life has changed... You cringe as you consider what could happen if you do not play this perfectly. You have to play it perfectly. There is no other choice, no other option, lest you lose everything.

Suddenly, your actions of the previous days carry new weight. You realize how much you have altered the lives around yours, in addition to your own. How much you will continue to do so. How you will continue to use Maria and Donna, despite your sense of morality telling you it is abhorrent, to further your goals. How they're people, and you're treating them like chess pieces on a game board. You sit silently for some time, brooding. And then you remember the love in Karina's eyes as you kissed her. The feeling of Nadia's arms wrapped around your chest. The sight of Mia in the coffee shop. The sound of Ana pouring shots along the bar. Your resolve firms. Whatever it takes, you will not lose what you have gained with them.

With thoughts of Maria and Donna dancing through your mind, of everything they will do for you, you log in to your computer to complete your work for the day.