Eric's face was wet with tears when he woke up. He leaned over and looked at clock on the small night stand. It was 6pm. He had barely an hour to wash up, get dressed, get his dinner before he started his "night shift."
He did not ponder too much about the dream, except wonder why it was that an erotic dream about some girl bothered him so much. He had long ago given up trying to find someone who liked him enough to be his girlfriend. He had enough to think about in his life.
He often wondered if his mother might get fed up of him and throw him out onto the street. He thought his erstwhile "father" might be inclined to support his mother's decision, since he never hid his own disdain regarding Eric's lifestyle, should it ever come to that. Eric had no idea how he might support himself. He had no education, no skills and certainly no work experience outside of the "Venus Inn."
Eric's room was specially altered to suit his needs. It had all sorts of handles sticking out of the walls so he could support himself when he needed to get into bed or go to the bathroom. Oftentimes he wished he could just move around on his own. He tried hard to remember a time when he could walk normally, but no matter how he tried, he could not remember himself walking. Sometimes he had flights of fancy when a fantastic image of himself flying in the clouds popped into his head. However, he dismissed all strange notions from his mind, he had to remain grounded in reality. His reality was a grim and rather sordid one and he needed to know how he could survive in it without being clouded by useless fantasies.
He was glad for one thing at least. He was able to use the bathroom unassisted. The initial training required him to go for a lot of physiotherapy, but through his mother's determination and his own desire for some form of independence, he managed to keep this part of his life dependence free. He was quite happy that he always had strong arms. He liked his privacy and it would have been a terrible blow to him if he needed assistance using the bathroom or the shower.
He pulled himself up using the handles and managed to prop himself gingerly onto a special seat that stood in the shower so he could shower alone without assistance. All knobs and device controls were situated where he could reach them while seated without much difficulty.
There were no mirrors and minimum of reflective surfaces in the bathroom. Since he was inflicted with his illness, he had stopped looking at all reflective surfaces completely, he could not bear the sight of himself in any mirror. As he was soaping himself up, he reached around to soap his back and his fingers brushed against something odd, it was sharp, not like a nail or the edge of broken glass, but sharp like a bristle. After feeling around for a bit, his fingers found a strange abnormally sticking out of his back. It felt like a bristle or growth and formed some sort of pimple-like lump. Eric sighed. It was likely a pimple or a large blackhead that was growing out from the skin of his back. He had a few when growing up and he was a teenager with acne and relatively oily facial skin. He pressed the sides of the lump and something seemed to be coming out. He tried squeezing it out, but it was terribly difficult to reach around. He finally gave up and slumped against one of the walls of the shower, but oddly enough this "blackhead" seemed to be poking back into his flesh. He reached around again and felt it. It seemed rather hard and was slightly flexible. Eric sighed. It was likely a monster blackhead!
He quickly rinsed and dried and then pulled himself out of the shower to his wheelchair in the room. He pulled on a pair of pants and shirt, but found that the odd object poked through the fabric of his shirt. Finally, in frustration, he pulled off his shirt and began prodding the odd "blackhead" on his back. Squeezing the sides of the pimple hard, he felt great relief when the odd bristly thing finally popped out. Eric managed to get a hold of it and put it down on a nearby table. It was very small, and did not look at all like a blackhead. In fact, it was yellowish and translucent. And was hollow, almost like the shaft of a small piece of feather. It was definitely organic and not some foreign object that had gotten embedded in his back.
Horrified, he felt around his back and located the hole which the object popped out from. His fingers located a rather large hole, not large enough to fit his finger in, but large enough so he could actually feel it. Wondering if he had done himself some harm, he grabbed his phone and angled it so it took a picture of his own back.
The photo showed his fair and lightly freckled back and what appeared to be a larger-than-normal hole caused by the exit of the "blackhead" on his back.
Examining the object as carefully as he could, Eric determined that it was not alive and was as hard as a bristle, and thicker than the normal bristles on a brush, but was also flexible. It looked so much like a tiny piece of feather, he wondered if some bird could have planted it there by accident.
He moved his wheelchair over to a small laptop computer he owned and looked online for information about bristle coming out of the back. There was of course, no information at all, except in avian species.
Eric looked over at the clock on the night stand and realized that with all the fussing about the bristle, it was almost 7. He dressed as quickly as he could and dialed the kitchen to bring up his dinner. In a few minutes, his door rang and when he opened it, a chambermaid came in with a covered dish and a glass of iced water on a tray. She placed it on a small mobile table that sort of resembled the mobile tables that a lot of hospitals have at the bed side and made sure that the tabletop was comfortably situated over the wheelchair handles.
After she left, he pulled off the metal cover and found a dish of grilled chicken breast and fries with a side of some kind of green salad.
He always ate alone in his room and never had any guests over because he had to remove his leather mask to eat. His mother suggested a half mask that would allow him to eat and drink at least when in public or with guests, but he did not like the idea of people looking at his twisted lips. Nevertheless, she had it made and he tossed it into a drawer as soon as she left.
He ate his dinner mechanically, he did not really enjoy eating. His meals were always alone and he merely ate it out of necessity. He actually felt that the food did not quite provide him with the nutrition that he needed. He had no idea why he felt that way, it was just how he felt. Feelings, as far as he was concerned, had no logical basis and he paid little heed to them.
He replaced the cover on the plate when he was done and dialed for the maid to come up and take away his dinner tray.
He was definitely "late for work." However, realistically, he knew at the back of his mind that it hardly mattered since is mother would never really fire him. The "night shift" was the one true responsibility that he had in the "Venus Inn." He moved his wheelchair to the next room beside his where a dozen or more close circuit TV monitors were hooked up along with a phone and pre-programmed numbers for the various hotel staff, such as the cleaning division and more importantly, security.
His job was to monitor the close circuit TVs. The truth about the "Venus Inn" was that there was surveillance in every single room, hallway and even café in the entire establishment. His "father" insisted on the security feature, he was as paranoid as every other person in his profession and since the "Venus Inn" was located in a rough neighbourhood, he felt that it was necessary.
There was another separate and identical set up in the security room downstairs were the night guard was stationed. However, Eric's personal security set up was entirely his mother's idea. She felt that the redundancy was needed and extra eyes were always better for the sake of safety. Also, she said to Eric with a wink, that he would enjoy the view it afforded him. Eric remembered his "father" rolling his eyes when she made that remark.
"Well, don't you think Eric should be at least partly responsible for what happens in his motel?" she remarked to his "father." He remembered with some pleasure that his "father", Ethan Marsson, shut up.
From his monitors, Eric could see everything that happened inside the motel, even inside the individual rooms. It would have been a pornographer's dream, if Eric was ever interested in becoming one. However, he had long ago abandoned all interest in sex and he viewed all the scenes he saw with a dispassion and disinterest that most priests hoped they had. He watched all that transpired, down to the last intimate detail, with an immovable and adamantine serenity.
This evening was pretty much the same as any other evening where he sat at the monitors. He flipped on the switch and made a quick sweep of all the monitors. Nothing seemed out of place. He watched as a man strolled in with one of the streetwalkers who hung around outside the motel. They went to the counter, paid for a room for a few hours and then headed upstairs. He watched uninterested as they proceeded to strip, shower and then engage in various sexual antics.
Eric rolled his eyes. This time he actually caught himself doing it. He had no idea why he felt the way he did. He thought the man appeared overeager and rather clumsy and would have benefitted from having better arm muscles. He turned to another screen and saw another man using his tongue against one of the other girls' nipples. The guy obviously had a nipple or breast fetish he thought absentmindedly.
Eric sat up in his chair. He never realized it before, but he had some very odd and critical thoughts running around his head. He never knew he had them, but quite obviously it was not the first time he had those thoughts.
He turned away from the room screens and focused on the café. His eyes fell on a woman who entered the café. She seemed rather familiar and then he realized that it was the same woman he had an altercation with the other day. He felt anger and all sorts of emotions rushing to the forefront of his mind. He wanted to go down and confront her. He wanted her to say something to him. Anything at all, preferably an apology, and something else.
Kiss me, he thought. He wasn't even aware that he said those two words secretly inside his head.
He moved his eyes and it fell upon a man sitting at a table beside the impudent woman. The man seemed rather familiar, but he knew that he had never seen this particular person before.
M- F- sadist, he thought rather nastily.
Eric sat bolt upright. He stared at the man again. And again the same thought passed his mind. He was with one of the streetwalkers. A girl he knew as Blondie. She had fake platinum blond hair and had obviously been hired by this fellow for an evening romp.
He watched the man take his last sip of the coffee and they walked to the reception area where they got a room.
Not too much time now… Eric thought. He quickly picked up the phone and dialed the night security team. He felt a kind of timer going off in his head. It was counting down the seconds of Blondie's life. He met the team at the lift lobby and led them up to the room that Blondie had gone with the man. He did not have to say much to the team, Eric seldom came down himself unless the situation was bad enough. It was a dangerously troublesome patron. They asked him no questions, having been trained by Ethan Marsson to read their employer's body language, and followed their crippled employer to the door of the room.
There were some noises coming from the room, but that was normal considering the type of guests who checked in. The timer in Eric's head was counting downwards rapidly now. He indicated for the security team to open up the door with the spare key they always carried.
Just in time, they pounced upon the man, who was standing behind a kneeling Bondie, choking her with a garrote made of some nylon string and a stick.
The man screamed out in horrified surprise as several of the guards jumped on him. They wrestled him down to the carpet and restrained him. It caused such a huge commotion that semi-naked people in bathrobes were poking their heads out of the other doors to see what had happened. Quite soon, a few cops popped out of the lift, having been alerted to the situation by the hotel staff. It was late at night and the usual crowd of policemen had stopped by on their rounds for doughnuts and coffee.
Soon enough, the cops were pushing the man, down the hallway and into a patrol car. There was a huge commotion and Eric grit his teeth hard, pulling his hood over his head. People were staring at all of them, and he felt, that they were looking at him in particular.
Most likely, he would get a visit from his "dad" in the next few days. He never liked meeting the man, but his mother would insist on the visit. She really did not like Cessville, and was at times overbearingly protective.
Eric went back to the privacy of his surveillance monitoring room as soon as he had given his statement to the police. When asked about why he had decided to descend upon the room when he did, Eric merely said that he had noticed this same person coming by the inn before, and that he had been a little too rough with some of the girls. Of course he was not naïve enough to say that he had acted on hearing a little voice in his head. He had been in an asylum, telling people that he was taking instruction from voices in his head was a bad thing.
He stayed in his little isolated room for a few hours and later decided to move out and down to the café to get a bit of their fresh brewed coffee. As he passed by a table, he noticed that Blondie had returned and was sitting rather unhappily at the table.
He was not too sure why he did what he did next. He rolled up to the table and asked if she was all right.
She glanced at him with a slightly sour expression.
"I've been with him before, Steve's never really hurt anyone. He's just a little rough, that's all."
"You could have died."
"Nah," she shook her head a little, a slender hand went up to the neck unconsciously to cover the bruise caused by the garrote on her pale skin. "He was just playin' "
Eric pulled out a bill.
Blondie reached over to grab it and then stopped.
"I don't need your money, Mr Marsson," she appeared hurt. "I just need to find another customer, fast."
"I want you to blow me."
She stared at him for the longest time, uncertain to make of what she was hearing. Then she took his bill, got up and followed him as he rolled out of the café.
"You do know, Blondie," he said rather quietly when they were in the lift going up. "That you should never follow a stranger in a mask to a lonely place, right?"
"You aren't a stranger, Mr Marsson," she said. "I've known you my entire life, most people here have."
He found an empty office upstairs without surveillance cameras and Blondie got down on the floor in front of him. Eric's hands shook incessantly as he fiddled around with the zipper on his pants.
"It's okay, Mr Marsson," she put her hand on his. "I'll get it out myself."
Blondie was amazingly skillful when it came to getting his dick out of his pants. She looked at it and then went, "huh."
"What's the matter?"
"It's amazingly… young-looking… for a guy of your age," she said, surprised at the appearance of his dick.
"Well, I think it should look like that for a guy my age."
"Well, it looks like it would be on a young man, in his 20s or 30s."
"Of course," he had no idea what she was talking about.
"Is there something wrong with it?"
"No! No…. its just, I didn't expect to see this…."
She quickly put her lips to it, and began stroking him vigourously. In fact rather too vigourously.
"Oh..ow… you might want to be gentler."
"Well, a lot of guys your age tend to need it stronger…"
"I aren't that old, and I do not have any form of dysfunction in that area."
"How old are you, Mr Marsson? Sixty, seventy?"
"What?! No…. I am quite young, jus approaching 30."
She paused for quite awhile with a puzzled expression on her face. Then replied, "Oh… of course… Mr Marsson…"
It had been such a long time since he had been with anyone, Eric almost forgot what it all felt like. He began moaning softly as he sucked him, teasing his sensitive head.
He was quite surprised when she swallowed his entire load. There was also an equally surprised look on her face.
"It tastes… odd."
"I'm so sorry about it," he said, grabbing a box of tissues. "We could have just cleaned up, you didn't have to swallow it."
"No, its not bad," she said rather soothingly. "Sort of like some kind of honey… and just a tiny bit salty…"
He was quite confused.
"Er, I am glad you like it."
"I mean it is so sweet you can use it on coffee."
None of this made any sense at all.
"Are you high?" he looked at her oddly.
"No, why do you ask?"
He sent her downstairs after that. Blondie went back to the street corner where she usually hung out. He made a mental note to occasionally invite Blondie up for another session.
The rest of the "night shift" ended without incident. At around 6 in the morning, he went back to his private room and slept a little, before taking a shower. He fondled his dick a little while soaping it up, and wondered if he should do more than just blowjobs with the girl.
Eric remembered his monster "blackhead" from yesterday and took a picture of his back. He nearly fainted when he looked at it.
The hole from yesterday had almost disappeared, but he now had dozens of similar-looking "blackheads" dotting his back in two distinct areas around his shoulder blades.