The Neighbor (Also, the Current Crush)

Craig Dougie

Craig Dougie winces in pain as he climbs up the stairs of his apartment complex. It’s been a long day and his knee is acting up from the cold. He rubs it, trying to coax it to work for just long enough to get to his chair. He cusses up a storm when he nearly slips on a patch of ice a few feet from his door. When he finally unlocks the door and opens the apartment, he sighs. Another shitty day, done.

The man collapses in his chair and grunts in pain. He kicks his work boots off, his knee brace, pants, and the long johns underneath. Grabbing a jar of old man rub, he massages his bum knee, trying his best not to look at it. His blood boils every time he looks at the scar; he already has enough rage about it just from the feel of the ugly, stiff skin on his fingers. Fucking bastard, destroyed my life and got fucking rewarded for it.

He slips on a lighter knee brace for home wear and heads to the kitchen. He grabs a six-pack of Molson Ice for dinner and cracks the first can. Turning on some hockey, he sits back in his chair. The Canucks are playing those bastards across the border. He throws his empty can at the television when the bastard shows up on the Krakens starting line. Craig can only stand to watch the Krakens on the off chance the bastard will get his comeuppance. First period down (and 3 beers also down) and it hasn’t happened.

The work doc says he needs to walk more, so he gets up during the longer commercial break between periods. He stares out of the big window to the apartment patio. His reflection in the mirror shows a man aging hard. His chest, arms, and legs still have the muscle he built for hockey and maintained for his job, but his beer gut is really starting to set in. He’s not quite fat enough to have a “dad bod,” but give it a few more months. Doc tells him to drink less, as it’s bad for the liver and his knee, but what does that egghead know? His impressive cock is still out on display, as he doesn’t bother to wear pants at home. He knows most of the neighbors complain about it (except that one chubby Asian chick), but it’s just envy; they are still not envious enough to come and suck him off, unfortunately. Not like anyone is gonna want to bang the cripple.

The game is back on, so Craig starts beer number four. Not only has the bastard not gotten injured yet, the Canucks are down 2-0. “C’mon, you guys. Smash those Kraken bastards in the teeth.”

By the time his latest beer is done, so is Craig with the game. He turns it off and pulls out his phone. He calls Crazy Eddie. Craig got bonus money for some emergency line repair. Might as well spend it getting laid.

Thirty minutes later, Craig’s doorbell rings and he hobbles over to his door. Checking to see who it is through the peephole, he opens the door to his usual whore, Lurleen. Lurleen is a six on a good day, which is better than Craig can normally get at the bars; again, no one wants a cripple. She stares at Craig’s half-hard cock and winks, noting, “Well, isn’t it my favorite customer. Usual, captain?”

Soon enough, Lurleen is leaning over his bed, and Craig, now only wearing his brace, is working out his knee in the best way possible, ramming his cock into Lurleen’s cervix. He can only get about halfway inside of the whore, but thrusting hard and fast into her feels amazing. While the whore is loose, she’s pretty good squeezing those inner wall muscles. And she’s cheap for an at-home whore. Craig is not here to please the whore. He gets paid to do shitty work repairing electrical lines, he’s going to enjoy using that money how he wants.

He pulls out just before he cums to paint Lurleen’s back with his spunk. He ain’t paying for a whore kid. Lurleen moans in dissatisfaction. Once Craig cums, he’s done. He hobbles over to his pants to pull out a couple of brown $100 bills before he sits down to reapply the old man rub. The plastic feel of the bills still bug the lineman. Lurleen has slipped on her clothes and walks, wobbly-legged, back to Craig before he bothered to check on her. Lurleen takes the money on the end table and heads out without a word. She knows how he is by now.

Knee brace back on, Craig flops into his bed. He’ll clean up dinner eventually. For now, he just wants to sleep.

The Broadcast (Craig’s Dreamscape)

Craig has the same dream, every night, for basically all of the past decade. Of course, he isn’t aware he is dreaming. Who is aware that they are dreaming?

It’s back to the British Columbia province high school hockey championship. Craig is the star defender, the perfect enforcer, the team captain. He’s assigned to focus down and neutralize the opponent’s star forward, a Quebecois transfer named Jacques Raide. And this time? This time, Craig is going to win. He slams Raide into the wall over and over and over again. By the time the first period buzzer goes off, Jacques face is hamburger. I’ll get that scholarship! I won’t be stuck in a dead-end job! I’m gonna make it big!

When the buzzer stopped, the opposing team pulls Raide out and replaced him with something ridiculous: some blue chick in an old fashioned outfit. She’s not even on skates.

And this girl, running on ice, is fast. Every time Craig tries to knock her off her feet, she is suddenly half way to the next blue line. And she shoots hard enough to knock the goalie off his feet.

The team adapts. It seems she doesn’t understand the off sides rule very well. They started to goad her into going ahead of the blue line and trigger face-offs. The smack talk she uses is strange. “Hey, Craig, I know you are bitter about this game. How would you like another chance to be the big shot team player? The guy that does what’s needed to let the forward score?”

She tries to shoot from the face-off circle instead of passing it to the other forward. Craig goes for the body check, after making a halfhearted attempt at the puck. When the defenseman slams into the girl, he is surprised just how much she just shrugs off the hit. Then she is suddenly on the other side of him, firing a second shot at the goal. The klaxon sounds. Craig’s team is down.

Another face-off. This time in the center. Again, Craig and the girl line up. Again, this sprig of a girl is faster. She has the sense to shoot the puck back to one of her teammates this time; Craig throws a punch into her smug, beautiful face. She jukes, smiles, and is behind him again. Now, Craig is mad; gloves off, he goes for the punch again. She tosses gloves, too, her brawling stance strange; she doesn’t exactly square up, easily slipping and leaning away from Craig’s haymaker. She taunts, “Losing your cool? That’s how this game ended the way it did. I can get you back into the thick of it, if you’d like.”

The ref isn’t breaking up the fight yet. “Fuck you, bitch. Just... go... down!”

The girl slips back again, uses her momentum to power up a hook, and lands it straight into Craig’s knee. FUCK!!!!! Craig collapses on the ice, his leg at an awkward angle. The girl looms over him, saying, “That is how it ended, more or less. Your dream. You want a chance at a different one or just wanna go back to constant pain and misery? You got until I leave the ice.”

Craig watches her start to strut away. “Wait! Please, don’t leave me here, bitch! I wanna matter; I wanna make it big.”

Craig

Craig finds himself, naked save his at-home knee brace, in the hallway of some medieval castle. He hobbles to the door in front of him, a heavy-looking wooden slab with a curved top. A bathrobe hangs on the handle of the door with a note pined to it: “If you’d like some clothes.” The hallway is comfortably cool, but he figures he should put it on. The silk is smooth, the most expensive item of clothing he has probably ever worn.

The doors swing open on their own and Craig hobbles his way into the room, taking in the scene. Is that the chubby Asian chick from across the complex on that throne? She seems to be staring at where my crotch is covered, drooling. She wanna ride me like some slut? Could’ve saved some money with Lurleen had I known. The black chick on the side looks tastier, though. The granny, twink, and twigs, much less so. The blue chick looks familiar, for some reason. And that blondie, fuck, too hot to not take a shot at...

“Yo, baby, wanna experience what a real man feels like?”

The blue chick steps between Craig and the blonde bunny-chick. She gestures towards chubby when appropriate as she says, “Craig, don’t flirt with my wife. Meet Mona. She’s the one you should try flirting with.”

“Uh, hi, was it Craig?” the chubby Asian girl stammers almost as soon as blue chick finishes, “I’m Mona. I’ve been your across the hall neighbor for a bit. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you two are dykes. Disappointing. What a waste of those tits. Both sets. Anyways, Mona, what do you say about you, me, and the black chick go find a bedroom somewhere to bang?”

Craig looks around to see reactions. Mona makes a… complicated face, some revulsion, some longing. Of the others in the room, only the twig in the prison jumpsuit is taking his flirting even remotely well, laughing a little as she notes, “And you wanted to save humanity.”

The blue chick looks visibly trying to remain calm. “Craig, have you considered that women are not interested in you for reasons other than your busted knee?”

“Shallow skanks don’t want a cripple, dyke.”

“I will tolerate your insults towards me and mine for only so long, Craig. I was taking it very light on you. Keep that in mind.”

With a snap of her fingers, the dream rushes back into Craig’s mind. His blood boils. She punched me in the bum knee hard enough to make me collapse. The bitch. He takes a step forward, just to feel a blade on his throat. The blue dyke bitch is right in front of him, holding a sword. The fuck?

“Again, Craig, I took you on with kid gloves in the dream. Keep pushing, I dare you.”

“Ah, cutie,” the blondie with her tits out interjects, “usually the host threatens naughty contestants with punishment transformations instead of, you know, beheadings.”

“I know, my bonny bunny. We just haven’t gotten to that part of the show yet.”

The room shudders collectively at that. Transformations? The fuck again?

The sword is withdrawn and sheathed. The blue chick adds an air of menace to her voice as she asks, “Well, Craig, maybe you should introduce yourself to the audience so we can move on.”

A series of questions enter Craig’s mind as he worries about this “audience”. He glares at the blue lady, planning on keeping his yap shut, then he starts to speak anyways, “Hi, I’m Craig Dougie. I am 28 years old, born and raised in Vancouver. I am a lineman, which means I deal with maintaining the power grid in and around the greater Vancouver area. I am 6 foot 2 inches and I have a like a foot long cock when erect. I paid for a whore last night; she left unsatisfied, as she normally does, but I paid her for sex, not for her to enjoy my dicking her down. Mona is one of my neighbors at my apartment complex; she’s the only one the landlord wouldn’t say was complaining about my habit to let my monster cock free with my windows open. I am very, very straight, like everyone should be.”

“So you know,” the blue chick adds, “Craig there is actually slightly under 11 inches when erect. He’s also a ‘shower,’ if you know what I mean. Flaccid, he’s about 8 inches.”

“For a dyke, you sure know a lot about my cock.”

“Part of the job. Why don’t you go stand with the others?”

Craig’s knee is screaming at him by this point. He’s been standing on it for too long with his at-home brace. “Can I have a chair?”

“Keep your robe closed then.” Another snap and a cheap folding chair appears with a jar of Craig’s old man rub. Craig hobbles over to it and collapses, his knee relieved that it doesn’t have to support half his weight at the moment. He slips off the brace and, still covering up his crotch, starts to rub his near ruined knee. A few of the others gasp at it.

“Don’t stare at it.”

The blue freak offers, “You want to tell them, or do you want me to?”

“Neither.”

“Fine.”

“My senior year of high school, I was the captain of the varsity hockey team. We made it to the finals of the province championship. An asshole on the other team nearly sliced by leg off at the knee during a brawl gone wrong. He got a scholarship and an eventual spot on a team in the NHL; I got a ruined life.”

Craig glares as he finishes up his knee treatment. Slipping his knee brace back up, he flips off the blue dyke. Fuck you!!!

“Now that we have met all of our contestants, we can move on to the next phase of the opening, the ever exciting rules and regulations section! But, before we completely move on, we will be holding our first popularity poll shortly. Be sure to tell us which of our contestants are the most and least appealing. It may help to encourage some self-reflection. Moving on!”