Christmas breakfast

Update: I am incredibly sorry to leave this story without updates for so long. I struggled a lot while writing chapter 126, since it'll be a major character development for our main character. In addition to that, real life has been incredibly demanding recently, while new ideas for this series have dried up. While it's not set in stone yet, I am probably going to wrap this story up at the end of week six of the story. It won't be a true ending (as in, not all girls will reach +100SP) and you'll have to endure some loose threads, but I think the story will reach a point where you can imagine the fun James and his harem will have in the future.

I was in the weird dream realm again. I turned around, and there she was, Ngrimah. I didn't say anything.

"So... How was your day? I noticed you didn't sell the traits I gave you."

"I was thinking about selling one, the one I complained about yesterday. But I'll see about that some other time. Today was busy."

"You finally indulged in my gifts a bit as well."

"Well yes. I never said that I want none of them. I just want to take it a bit slower and I don't want to **** anything."

"But WHY? You have the option. You can do basically anything to your personal sluts bar killing them or injuring them grievously and yet you choose not to. You could have **** the Head of the Sexual Crime Department and she'd have to live with that shame. Use my gifts to their full extent."

"You know, I've had all day thinking about this... Why do you care?"

"Hm?"

"You told me that the women are practically mine anyway. Why do you care about what I do to do them? If they're mine, I can do what I want with them, And if that's letting them live a free life, then what's the issue?"

"Don't you dare speak up against a Goddess, puny mortal."

"Or what? Take the app away from me, I don't care. I offered you that yesterday and you refused. Or rather you couldn't... Why aren't you happy that I don't mistreat your former subjects?"

"Mortal, you need to learn to appreciate the gift the Gods have bestowed upon you."

"I do, almost every day... Just because I don't need a command to get women to spread their legs doesn't mean your gift is useless to me. Besides, I am a busy man... You probably know this about human society already, but we all play our role to make us work as a species. Things aren't easy enough for me alone to have a harem, someone needs to earn money to feed every mouth, I need to have the space and I need to be accepted as having multiple eager partners because our society is still a bit skeptical of that. If you know so much about my life, then take a look at my expenses this month, at the organization required to let multiple people move in with me... There's just certain things that I will have to accept. Unless the app gives me money, they'll all have to work and so do I. Not to mention, I quite like my work. I will continue to operate with the app how I choose, understood?"

"So you can stand your ground? A bit foolish against a goddess, however..."

"Your words remain empty until you tell me how you would punish me. And even then I might choose to continue to act like this."

"You know, maybe you are right. You have a noble soul and you don't seem to need the app. Maybe I should tinker with who gets it."

"Do that, if you must. I have proposed that last time already. I'm glad you finally understand."

"You are a fickle being, mortal, are you not? One moment you have a spine of steel and the other you let me walk over you."

"I am strong, dominant, arrogant, demanding, and an asshole when I want to be, and I am kind, caring, understanding, accepting, and forgiving when I want to be. That is true strength. Not the subjugation of myself to my carnal desires, but my progress towards a greater cause of my own choosing, in this case the happiness of the people I like and love. Not just myself. And if that means throwing some hands with a goddess in my dreams, then so be it."

"I see. Just this once I will grant you something. You complained about Christine's trait, right? I will revise it." Ngrimah +1SP

"D-Did you see that?"

"Hm?"

"It was the app alert for gaining submission points, but it referred to you. It also had no point total." I pulled out the app. Indeed, it listed Ngrimah. Her icon was an exact copy of Helen. Her total SP were obscured, but I now had 518SP, one more than I should have. I showed that screen to her and the dream faded away. Waking up, I checked my phone. Nothing. The list ended with Megan. Clicking on the space below her, where other people could appear, nothing happened. Everything seems fine. Phew. Not even sure how I would be supposed to do anything with her in the app. My SP total also went back to 517. I checked Christine's trait, it now read:

Subject feels significantly more sexually satisfied from rough sex, being hurt, and being taken advantage of. Hurting the subject too much will reverse the trait's effects to ensure their physical safety.

Thank you, Ngrimah. I genuinely appreciate it. I don't know if you can hear me, but if necessary, contact me again if you need me to do something. My alarm went off and Jane got up as well.

"Waking up early, James?"

"Oh right, you probably didn't notice, but I wasn't alone yesterday. I'll make some breakfast for us five."

"Five?"

"Us two, my neighbors, and Em. You should know them by now."

"Oh, yeah I do. Go ahead I guess. I'm not much help in the kitchen. But maybe after breakfast we can..." She gave me a knowing smirk.

"Oh absolutely, don't worry."

I set the table for five people, while Jane was still getting dressed. Em stepped out in her pajamas, yawning. "Morning James. Merry Christmas. Huh wait, five plates?"

"Yeah, we had a surprise visitor yesterday. Hope you don't mind." She looked over to the empty couch.

"Not at all. Glad you convinced me to sleep in your mom's room?"

"Well I won't lie, yeah. Sorry about that. But we'll get her bed here later today, so New Years can be a lot better for you. Or any other night you might stay here after that."

"Eventually everyone will return, right?"

"Oh, right, I guess so. If you're going to stay here more often, I can get a better couch or a fully new bed for you and make this your second home. You see, I have a childhood friend and her father's company is really good at making and delivering furniture, repairs, and helping people move. I can probably ask them to make a better couch or bed." I winked.

"Haha, wouldn't that be a waste of money, though? The moment he's dead I'll... get out of your hair."

"I mean, not really. There'll probably be more women moving in with me at some point, at least one of them might prefer your future second bed - or maybe one of them just likes a couch in their room."

"A-Alright."

"And besides that, you're always welcome here. We don't know when you don't need to come here because of me anymore, but if you want to visit any of the women that live with me or will live with me, you're always welcome, Em."

"Uhm... thanks. I'll see if I make any friends here."

"Oh Em, since we're speaking about the times after your father dies, that reminds me... I know it's asking for a lot, but please do not share my secrets even after this arrangement stops being beneficial to me, okay? If possible, take the things you see and hear here to the grave."

"I will James, don't worry. You're a great partner and I'd never jeopardize our contract like that."

"Em, I mean forever forever. Even if, for whatever reason, we have a falling out or I switch business partners."

"Oh... Don't leave me, okay? We need you at the company..."

"I get that Em, but we're 24. We'll keep working in this business for over half a century probably. We just won't know what might happen. And well, I just want my reputation to be safe. Plenty of people would judge and I don't want my career to crumble into pieces just because some idiots don't like my lifestyle."

"I think I can promise that, James. I don't see a lot wrong with your lifestyle, but I understand you, to some extent. I've thought about my own future a lot too, and spoken with some clients. There will probably be a phase in my 40s and 50s where people will judge me for being single and never having been in a relationship. Or well, never a real one. They'll see me as someone no man ever wanted and judge me badly because of it. I don't want that kind of thing to be said about me and if there was a way around it that makes me happy, I'd take it too. I'll support you in keeping your life choices secret. We both deserve not to be judged and you have the option to keep it a secret, so I'll support you."

"Thanks Em, it means a lot."

"When will we leave for your parents' house by the way?"

"I... don't know yet. I might have more sex with Jane after breakfast, so whenever we're finished, I guess."

"Sigh... okay."

"Unhappy?"

"You four kept me up last night, sorry."

"Four? Oh... I didn't realize how paper thin these walls were..."

"The walls aren't the issue, it's the doors. Thin, wooden doors that don't fit tightly into the frame. Today we use rubber for a lot of reasons, both to make slamming a door softer but also for sound insulation."

"Huh neat. Well now you know what we'll do in the next year then."

"I know I get paid more to do more work, but as a friend... Why would you do that? All you really need is one door being good at insulating sound and make that room a guest room. If you don't have the space for that, just decide on a room and invite whoever lives there to your room for the night. I'm sure they'd all be happy to be the one you have to sleep with when guests are over. And well, who knows if I'll ever visit again anyway."

"I guess you're right. I'll think about it. Oh by the way Em, it felt weird not giving you anything for Christmas, so I bought a small box of chocolates for you. Nothing big, just also not nothing."

"Th-Thanks, but I didn't buy you anything."

"It's okay, I didn't expect you to. Think of this as compensation for having to spend time with me."

"James, you're already the better of two evils."

"Well, a better evil is still evil. So take something to sweeten your day."

"I..."

Amber and Klara entered the living room.

Amber: "Good morning you two."

James: "Feeling better, Klara?"

Klara: "Somewhat. I knew I made the right choice sticking with Amber yesterday, but I'm glad she was so convincing after the fact anyway."

Amber: "Haha. I love you honey. I'm glad you stayed with me. Not just for my sake, but also because well... your desires are your desires. If you went along with your family you'd just find another woman one day that you'd fall in love with and then the crisis starts all over again."

Emily: "Better to rip the band-aid off early, yeah."

Jane now also stepped out of the room.

Jane: "Good morning everyone. Sorry for not being there with you all yesterday, I had duty until late in the night."

Amber: "It's alright. The more, the merrier, after all. Oh but, James, just so you know, Klara and I will leave after breakfast. Thank you for letting us celebrate Christmas with you all."

James: "Gladly and enjoy the time at home with Klara."

We all ate our breakfast and Amber and Klara left. Em and Jane remained.

Emily: "I'll clean everything off, you two can do whatever you want." Emily +1SP (+82SP)

Jane: "Shall we?"

James: "Sure, thanks Em. I owe you one."

We went to the bedroom, when suddenly, Jane's buzzer went off. "Looks like we don't have any time today, sorry James. I'd love to, but..."

"It's okay, I get it. Duty calls."

"See you, bye." She gave me a very brief hug before running off in a hurry, putting on her long coat while running. The streets were luckily no longer icy, but I was still a bit worried that she might trip and fall. I returned to Em and helped her clean up the table.

"Just us two again, huh?"

"Yeah. On the plus side, we can take care of my mom's stuff earlier. And well, then you can spend the rest of your day doing whatever, no need to be around me anymore."

Pretty soon, we were on our way to my parents' old house.

"James, we should come up with a good lie for my father."

"Oh yeah. What did we do last time, according to you?"

"I think something like cuddling and kissing?"

"Oh yeah. This was a romantic dinner, I guess?"

"Well, if we want to make it believable, we need to go in certain stages. Me saying 'yes' on New Years Eve shouldn't be surprising."

"Your father expects a business connection, right? No need to be so intimate."

"We need the facade to justify you taking me out of his clutches every now and then."

"Right... so what's the ballpark?"

"Well, we'll meet again on Saturday, Monday, and New Years Eve. Monday is the day we'll say we had protected sex, meaning that Saturday we should already be making out at the very least. So what does that make today and yesterday?"

"I don't really know... Well, let's just pretend we spent the night together. Not sex, but let's lie and say we shared a bed. And maybe we can pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend? As in, saying that were supposedly are a couple."

"That can work, thanks. What items do we need from your mom?" she said, as we were exiting the truck and getting my mom's stuff.

"The bed frame is the main thing, apart from that, she grabbed most of her stuff already, we need a couple smaller furniture items to stow them all away."

"Got it."

We brought them into the truck and left them in her room.

"So what's your plan for the rest of the day, James?"

"Don't have one. The holidays are a big empty space for me. Why? Do you have any ideas?"