Chapter 10: Pocketful of Pellets

Josh had never been to the aquarium before, at least, not the big one in San Francisco. He had some vague memories of watching a dolphin show once, but that might have been a TV documentary. This was a pretty cool setup though. Guests entered through an underwater tunnel, able to gaze up at the sharks swimming lazy circles around the large tank. He’d never tried scuba diving, but this must be what it felt like, being completely surrounded by nothing but water and fish.

Were sharks fish?

“Ooo, Daddy, look at that one,” Rina exclaimed excitedly, pointing toward a massive bull shark as it swam by, its huge teeth peeking out even with its mouth closed like it needed some serious dental work.

“Come on, Daddy,” Kimi whined, tugging at his arm and barely glancing upward. “I want to see the dolphins. The show starts in five minutes.”

“We can just catch the next one,” Rina countered, tugging Josh’s other arm and pointing up again. “Look, that one’s going to eat.”

“Daddy, please,” Kimi continued, still tugging at his arm.

Another couple, harried by their own whining children, caught Josh’s eye. “Kids, right?” the father groaned with a good-natured smile.

Based on how the girls were acting, Josh could see how they’d be mistaken for kids. Their pig-tails also weren’t helping, nor the fact that they barely reached his chest even on their tip-toes.

“And more on the way, too,” Callie replied with a smile, rubbing her swelling belly.

“Best of luck with that,” the husband said before being dragged off by his daughter.

“I hope I age like that,” the woman mumbled to him just before disappearing around the corner.

“See, Daddy?” Callie said upon placing a kiss on his cheek. “No one can tell how old Asians are. They just assume I’m their mother.” She then snapped her fingers, loud enough to startle Josh, bringing the girls to attention with sheepish looks. “Now, no more whining. We’re going to the dolphin show and then we can spend time walking around the shark tank afterwards. No more bothering Daddy.”

“Haaaa~i,” the twins mumbled, Kimi giving a side-long smirk to her sister.

While they usually got along, they seemed oddly competitive in getting Josh’s attention. Everything became a contest with those two. Who could make him the best meal? Who could get the best grades? Who could make him cum the fastest? Whose pussy was tighter? Who could take it in the ass harder?

It never ended.

At least Callie was the mature one.

While the girls were distracted, Callie slipped her hand into Josh’s and interlaced their fingers. She then stuck her tongue out at the girls who glared at her before fighting about who got to hold his other hand.

Okay, maybe not so mature.

Rina managed to grab his other hand, so Kimi instead just hugged him around the waist and walked close beside him. This in turn made Callie release his hand, placing it on her hip as she wrapped her arm behind him and squeezed her breasts against his side.

They continued their weird battle of one-upmanship for the entire walk, everyone they passed simply thinking them a cute family.

If only they knew.

These organized outings were starting to get a bit hectic. There were only so many hours a day, and with all their crazy schedules they needed to find group activities so that the girls weren’t feeling left out. He could still get some quality one on one time, but the days of spending 24 hours with a girl were long gone.

The dolphin show was packed when they got in, barely enough seating room for the audience. Luckily, expectant mothers got preference, and they were escorted to the mid-tier central area, just far enough away not to get splashed. Callie led the way, firmly pulling Josh along so that neither of the girls could sneak between them. When Callie got to her spot on the bench, she pulled him tight, with Kimi squeezing in after. Not to be upstaged, Rina sat on Josh’s lap, wiggling her little butt and studiously ignoring the other two who glared daggers at her.

Josh sighed, glancing over at the couple beside Callie. “Kids, right?”

While the rest of the afternoon was a bit of a juggling act between the three, they all seemed to have a good time. Callie gushed over the baby penguins, Rina sat entranced as the sharks fed, and Kimi just skipped along happily checking out the rest of the exhibits.

After the aquarium, they took a stroll on the beach, the winds tugging at their hair pleasantly on the warm afternoon.

“Oh, Daddy, I’ve been thinking,” Callie began as she snuggled into his arm. “We should make some JAV videos. We have enough people now.”

“ ... Is that like ... an orgy?” Josh asked, glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. “We’ve been doing those for a while now.”

“No, Daddy,” Callie said, rolling her eyes. “I know we do those. We’re in a bunch of them. Japanese Adult Videos.”

“Wouldn’t they be JA videos then?” Callie gave him a confused look. “You said, JAV videos. But that’s like saying ATM machine. That’s Automatic Teller Machine machine. Like Japanese Adult Video videos.”

“Okay then, mister dictionary. We should make a JAV.”

“Sure ... how is it any different from a regular one?”

Rina gave a dramatic gasp beside him. “You’ve never seen a JAV, Daddy? I thought you were a man of culture.” Kimi giggled with her at the long-suffering look Josh gave them.

“It’s more about themes than anything else,” Callie explained, a little smile on her face as though she were suppressing a giggle as well. “Western stuff, like a lot of what we do, is kind of direct and to the point. Some weakly fabricated story as just an excuse to fuck. JAV tends to be more elaborate with the setup. Also, way more variety with the story and kinks.”

“Weird stuff, too,” Rina said, beginning to count off on her fingers. “Ghosts, aliens, tentacles, non-con, reverse non-con, watersports—”

“I can live without that last one,” Kimi added.

“Game shows, smelling, foot stuff,” Rina continued.

Kimi jumped in at a lull. “Bully, NTR, reverse NTR, shota, loli—”

“Let’s stay away from those last two,” Callie added quickly.

“Huh? Why? What are those?” Josh asked, head still spinning by all these things the girls knew.

“Don’t worry about it, Daddy,” Callie said placatingly. “Some stuff really should just stay in Japan.”

“Aww, I was looking forward to dressing up for Daddy,” Kimi pouted.

“Nope,” Callie said definitively. “That’s a legal battle that I don’t think Daddy wants your uncle to have to take on.”

“Huh? Why is Charles taking something on?”

What the hell were the girls even talking about?

“Oh, it’s where the guy finds himself a cute little—”

“Anyway!” Callie interrupted Rina, muffling her with a firm hand over her mouth. “We should do something that’s mainstream,” she shot a glare at Kimi for some reason, “but can bring in a large audience. I’m thinking ... Yakuza takes payment from a wife and her two daughters.”

“Oh, oh, can he fuck me in front of you two while you’re all tied up?” Kimi asked excitedly, holding her hands crossed at the wrist above her head as though she were being restrained. “Yamette~.”

Rina squirmed her way out of Callie’s grasp. “I call dibs on getting fucked in bed while you all sleep around me and I have to keep quiet, or he’ll fuck you all too.” She mimed muffling herself and moaning.

“Oh! We should do a scene where Daddy makes us wash him and then he fucks us both while Callie’s outside listening.” Now both of them were pretending to wash him without using their hands, rubbing their little chests against him playfully.

“Oh, we could be studying, and Daddy fucks Mommy in the kitchen behind us without us noticing.”

“We should set up a photo of a husband so that he can fuck her while she looks at the photo. A wedding photo would be perfect.”

The girls were getting steadily louder and more animated as they laid out all their fucked up little scenarios.

“Uh, so ... I guess JAVs have a lot of non-con stuff?” Josh ventured as Rina and Kimi proceeded to list out some of the most hardcore stuff he’d heard in a long time.

“Yeah, but it’s not like ... violent or anything,” Callie explained. “The actresses always struggle like they didn’t have an ounce of muscle on them. I’d almost call it more reluctance than anything else. They just get bullied into everything. And they all dress like massive sluts. Every housewife is rocking skin-tight clothes, ultra miniskirts and mini thongs. We could have a lot of fun with it.”

“We should plan out the scenes,” Rina said, her eyes wide with the possibilities. “We just need a set and Daddy can fuck us silly. Oh my god, I can’t wait for him to rape me.”

Jesus! Thank God no one was listening.

“Okay, okay, let’s keep our voices down a bit,” Josh said. “Public area and I don’t fancy talking to the cops.”

“Exactly,” Callie added. “We should go home and plan out how we want Daddy to rape us.”

Where did these kinks keep coming from?

“I’m not sure if I should be aroused ... or terrified.”

Josh sat on the couch, Becky cuddled under his arm, keeping a wary eye on Callie and the girls as they spread page after page of scenes out across the dining room table. They seemed to have settled on a home invasion of a loving mother and her two daughters. Callie had vetoed, much to Rina and Kimi’s disappointment, any clothing that made them look too young.

Probably for the best. He’d tried googling some of the terms they’d thrown around, and a warning had popped up about how the term was blocked. That couldn’t have been a good sign. Also, what the fuck, Japan?

“I don’t know, Daddy. Some of that stuff sounds kind of fun.”

“Becky, I love you like crazy, but I’m not peeing on you.”

“Ew, not that! I’m talking about the SoapLand stuff. It sounds kind of fun washing you down with only my tits.”

That certainly had sounded interesting, though he couldn’t imagine how that would work in a western bathroom. The bathrooms here were only bathtubs and showers, but apparently in Japan it had a sitting area where people washed up and rinsed off before ever getting into the tub. Probably more sanitary than just directly climbing into a bath.

“Aren’t you kind of spoiling the surprise by sitting here, Daddy?” Becky asked, snuggling deeper into his embrace. “Won’t it be more fun finding out what they have in store for you afterwards?”

“I guess that’s true,” Josh conceded, already thinking about what else they needed to do. “I could help Maria with scouting out some locations. I haven’t had a chance to finish Slut Three’s training either. Oh, I should go buy something nice for Mikaela’s dinner. Probably get something art related for her mom, too.”

“No, Daddy. No work, you do enough of that already. Do something fun.”

Becky squeaked as he squeezed her tight buns through her shorts. “Something like this?”

“I mean it, Daddy,” she pouted, though she did continue to press her butt into his hand. “Go have some fun. Don’t you have any hobbies? You always dote on us and do what we want to do, but you never do something that’s just for you. Come on. What would you like to do?”

That was a good question. What was there to do? So much of his time was spent with the girls that he couldn’t even recall what he used to do for fun.

Maybe ice hockey? Hadn’t done that in a while, but then he’d need to find a group of people to play with and then coordinate games, and that was just another drain on his time.

Video games? Meh. Maybe he was just aging out of the target demographic, but everything seemed like it was competitive shooters or social deduction games. Either way, that required playing with other people, and folks took things way too seriously these days.

“Nothing, Daddy?” Becky asked, laying her head on his lap and looking up at him. “Racing? Go karts? Pool? Guns?”

Woah, that brought with it a wave of nostalgia.

“Oh? Were you a gun nut, Daddy?”

He could feel a smile beginning to tug at his lips. “No, not guns.”

The acrid smell of cleaning solution and gunpowder was thick in the air as Josh opened the heavy door, his eyes twinkling at what lay before him. How they managed to replicate that smell without any live ammunition was beyond him, but it set the mood nicely.

Neatly arranged aisles brimming with equipment lined the cavernous room, signs overhead guiding shoppers to the newest line ups of high-end airsoft rifles, body armor, camo gear, and anything else a professional player could possibly want. Glass counters lined one side of the store, gleaming models of anything from handguns to shotguns to rifles and machine guns mounted enticingly on the walls or filling the cases. Staff members busied themselves with lines of customers, all carrying their purchases gleefully, while fully decked out players filtered into the arena in the back.

This had been a good idea. As much as he loved spending time with the girls, they were right, he needed to unwind on his own too. He hadn’t been able to play since he’d lost his job, and he had dearly missed his favorite hobby. He’d even had to pawn off his VSR-10 replica, his all-time favorite rifle, just to eat.

A grimace crossed his face.

Those had been bad times.

But those days were behind him. He was back, and he was going to enjoy his time here.

Stepping around several shoppers, Josh headed down the armor aisle to check out the newest lines. He passed by some of the more dated pieces, those that he’d been told by some of his buddies weren’t even good replicas of the real thing, to the newest lineup. His eyes lit up at the tactical gear, his hands running over the woven material. It looked just like the video games and was surprisingly heavy. It might actually stop a real bullet. Not that he ever wanted to test that out.

“Oh, good eye. I used to wear armor like that in the army. Tacticon does a good job modeling it after the real thing, even down to the additional plates for realism.” A man in army fatigues and a name plate stepped beside Josh and tapped the ballistic vest he was holding. “Though, I wouldn’t try standing in front of a bullet, even if it does feel like you could tank a round,” he added with a smile.

“Yeah, I heard from some of my old pals that this was the lineup to try,” Josh said, shaking the proffered hand. “I’m Josh, been out of the game for quite a while.”

“TJ,” he replied with a firm shake. “I used to play all the time before I joined up. You’d be surprised at how applicable some of the tactics you learn out there are to real firefights. Hell, I used to have an M3 shotgun replica that was the same as the real thing, save for the orange tip.”

“Does anyone still leave those on?” Josh asked with a chuckle. “We always used to pull them off after buying them.”

“Well, you know, legally I have to say that you aren’t allowed to do that,” TJ said seriously, before giving him a wink. “But, yeah, used to peel them off myself back in the day.”

“Don’t know any serious player that ever kept them on. Hey, you got any VSR-10’s or SIG SMG’s?”

TJ’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my friend, I got the newest models to show you, fresh off the truck.”

Josh followed TJ as he led him toward the show cases, unable to shake a weird sense of déjà vu. Maybe it was just being back in the thick of things, surrounded by people who loved the game as he did, but it still nagged at him. Those thoughts quickly fled though, when he laid eyes on the mottled blue and black figure of sleek sniper rifle. Where the old VSR-10 gave the impression of a WWII sniper rifle, this one look more predatory, like something you could use at mid-range and long. The frame itself was thicker and more durable, looking almost like a heavy shotgun. The rails on the top were sleeker too, able to mount just about any kind of scope.

“Good eye there, Josh,” TJ said as he opened the case. “This here is a VSR ONE, updated design by Tokyo Marui, that I personally love. Also always reminded me of an Imperial Blaster, but that’s just the nerd in me talking.”

Josh gingerly took the surprisingly heavy rifle, pressing the stock against his shoulder and aiming it at the ground.

“Fits nice,” Josh said, adjusting his shoulder and taking a few steps while slowly waving the rifle. “Moves nicely for being so heavy.”

“Alloyed steel, balanced nicely in the center. Solid power on it with barely a drop at 200 feet. With good wind, you could bullseye someone at 300 feet, no problem.” TJ pulled out a separate box, laying out the contents. “And check this out,” he said, holding up a realistic shell casing. “You can load these babies with rounds and actually eject them, if you’re looking for the authentic feel. Hell, with a few simple mods, you can make it sound like the real thing too.”

Josh raised an eyebrow, looking doubtfully at the collection of small attachments. Sure, technology had changed a lot since he’d last played, but surely not to that level.

TJ laughed at the expression. “I know, I know, seems hard to believe, but you should try it out. We don’t have this model for rent in the back, but we have some modded assault rifles that you can try out. My hand to God, you’d never know they were toys.”

“Well ... this I need to see for myself,” Josh said, eyeing the back room.

Josh breathed hard, that familiar thrill of the game coursing through him once more, fog occasionally obscuring his view as it clouded his mask. The rented equipment fit snuggly, hardly hampering him as he crossed the grounds, staying low to the ground. The mask wasn’t his preferred style, not enough air circulation to keep his visor clear, but it was better to be safe than take a pellet to the face.

Josh winced at the memory of once having to pluck a round from his cheek. It had barely broken the skin and hadn’t even really hurt, but the haunting image of squeezing it out in front of the mirror in the bathroom with a gush of blood was more than enough to remind him to stay safe.

Remaining low, he crept along wall, staying just under the windows as he and his group moved quietly through the field. This one was open air, just outside the store, built to look like an urban combat zone. The buildings were no more than a floor tall, designed to break up eye lines and give players the chance to breach and clear rooms. There wasn’t any glass in the windows, so players could vault over and fire through them, and the doors were barely more than plywood, but it all felt real.

Gunfire barked to the north where the other squad had gone. These new guns were awesome, having been fitted out with the newest realism modifications, they sounded like the real thing. It wasn’t the soft ‘pft’ of gas propelled pellets, no, this was the actually crack of a round exploding from a chamber. The MP4 SMG replica felt good in his hands. Weighty. Like he was actually holding a gun.

Josh stood beside the door, back pressed against the wall as he gestured to his squad. Mason and Bill, their names tagged on their custom chest pieces, nodded and backed up, leveling their rifles on the door. At least two players were holed up inside, firing on the other squad. Josh held up his fingers, counting down.

Josh grinned. He loved doing this.

When the final finger dropped, Josh kicked backwards with his foot, slamming his heel just below the door handle, slamming it open immediately. He ducked back as the other players swept into the room, SMG’s rattling off. The fact that the returning fire was the soft ‘pthunk’ of airsoft pellets did take him out of the moment. Well, not everyone modded their rifles or wanted the realism, but it was still fun.

Was this how navy seals felt? He’d met some veterans back in his school years who’d been true badasses on the field, moving with such precision that it had been mind-boggling to the amateur players. They’d been cool guys, showing the kids coordinated tactics and how to donkey-kick a door open. Josh had spent hours perfecting that technique. It was just so badass.

He’d met a lot of fun guys over the years, picking up various skills that they’d teach, using them exclusively until he’d perfected them.

Back in the moment, Josh followed Mason and Bill into the room, sweeping the area for any additional resistance. He glanced at the two guys on the ground, one coughing slightly before resuming his ‘dead’ pose. In most of the games he’d played, the players would hold up their hands and march off the field back to respawn, but this game mode was ‘elimination’ and the defeated players needed to stay where they were until the game concluded. Not that they’d wait very long, hardly any game lasted more than a few minutes.

Mason and Bill were already out the next door when something scraped the floor behind Josh. Spinning around, he barely leaned out of the way as a bright orange plastic knife nearly touched his chest. Not many people used the knife rules in the game, but those that did took great glee in sneaking up on other players and ‘killing’ them.

Josh retreated, blocking the next strike with his gun before grabbing the man’s wrist and spinning him, tossing him over his hip and onto the ground.

“Oh, oh shit, I’m sorry,” Josh apologized, letting go of the guy’s arm as he groaned on the floor. There were specific rules for knife combat, and physically throwing the other player was not allowed. Josh hurried to help the player into a sitting position. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he groaned, hunching over and rolling his shoulders. “Hell of a move.”

“Ah, yeah,” Josh said sheepishly as he quietly pulled his sidearm while rubbing the other players back. Teddy used to point out all the time that just because someone was down, didn’t mean that they were out of the game. Josh did still feel bad about technically breaking the rules about no-contact, but it kind of came with the territory of being a knife player. Also, the guy was still holding his knife. “Kind of took me by surprise.”

“Like—,” he started, his arm swinging with a backwards grip on his knife when the soft ‘pft’ of a gun being unloaded point-blank into his armored back sounded.

“Yeah, just like that,” Josh said with a grin, patting the guy on the shoulder as he dropped the knife and groaned. “Nice try.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said. “Oh, right, blegh!” He flopped over comically, tongue hanging out as his eyes grew unfocused.

“God, I love this game,” Josh sighed, recovering his rifle and rushing to join the others. He made a note to grab a knife for the next round.

TJ gave an impressed nod watching these guys play through the monitors. This was an impromptu group, so their coordination wouldn’t be as good as a tournament crew, but they moved nicely through the playfield. At least three of the players were former military, their training showing as they seamlessly breached a room. A few others were more obviously self-taught, using outdated or completely made-up hand signals. Still effective, though.

Truthfully, he missed this kind of action. Not the fake play here, but the actual battlefield. He’d been in the thick of it for years in Afghanistan, and transitioning back to civilian life was rough. He’d tried therapy, joined a bunch of vet groups, even made a go of working a sales job for a while, but none of it had stopped that itch. The shrink had suggested doing something combat adjacent, whatever that meant, so he’d picked up a part-time job here. The atmosphere was nice, people were cool, and he got to provide combat training and pointers to amateurs, so that was fun.

It still didn’t really scratch that itch though.

Eventually, TJ had given in to that desire, joining some of his old buddies at a security group. He’d thought they would get shipped abroad as mercenaries, but no, they just got more babysitting jobs for rich muckety-mucks who were paranoid someone would steal their new car. Well, at least he could still do this to feel like he was actually contributing something, even if it was just for some guys to get better scores.

Maybe he should take up hunting. Though, hanging out for hours in a blind somewhere only to fire off a round every few hours seemed pointlessly lame. Maybe something more exciting? Bear hunting? Something that could fight back.

TJ shook his head and banished those thoughts.

That was a slippery slope. It would never be enough. He’d always be chasing that high, like so many before him. And there were only bad endings by following that road.

A soldier with nothing to protect was a liability waiting to happen. The shrink had said something along those lines. Maybe more flowery, but it amounted to the same. He needed to find something else. He wasn’t a soldier anymore.

... then who the hell was he?

TJ let out a sigh and headed back toward the debriefing room.

Twenty players filed into the room, laughter and friendly chatter following them as they secured weapons and disarmed. This group seemed like a good crew, with a pretty even distribution of age ranges. There were a few shorter middle-schoolers and probably their parents, and a lot of folks in their twenties and thirties.

He spotted Josh, the new guy who seemed insanely familiar, but he just couldn’t place him. Josh had an odd compilation of skills out there. He was a good leader and knew the hand signs, but his firing form was more free-wheeling and less steady than most veterans. He’d cleared a room using a hodge-podge of marine tactics, but then used aggressive army tactics to clear the intersection, rushing through incoming fire and establishing forward positions. It was like he’d learned a whole bunch of different styles and applied whatever was needed for the situation. Too polished to be self-taught.

And something about that breach was so familiar. Most people didn’t use the donkey kick, opting instead for a straight kick. Where had he seen that before?

Josh pulled off his helmet, sweat glistening on his forehead, as he laughed with some of the other players.

“Josh, nice clear, man,” TJ said from the door. “I was watching on the monitor. Did you serve?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Josh said with a laugh and a dismissive wave. “I’ve just played a lot with some army guys back in the day. Taught me a lot. Showed me how to kick in a door, and also how to apply a stranglehold, though that’s kinda frowned upon.” Josh pulled out the plastic knife from his shoulder sheath, performing a Korean hapkido maneuver and flourish before snapping it back in. “Showed me how to do some cool knife tricks, but didn’t have a chance to try it today.”

It was still bugging him. He’d definitely met Josh before, but where?

“Where did you used to play? Here?”

Josh scratched his head like he was trying to think of a good answer. “Uh, nowhere special, just around. Been playing since I was twelve back in the WAC. A little local place—”

“Warsaw Amusement Center?” TJ asked, a flood of memories of his childhood washing over him. Running around the laser tag center with his friends and then finally getting old enough to play with the big kids out on the airsoft field, his gangly little buddy always by his side. “Joshua? Joshua Nelson?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah, how’d you know?”

“Holy shit, dude! I haven’t seen you in, like, fifteen years. I totally didn’t recognize you. We used to run around there all the time.”

“ ... Teddy?”

Josh’s home life had been about as far from idyllic as it could get. Absent mother, emotionally unavailable father, and a parade of new stepmoms, some who only lasted a few months before they couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t blame them, it was tough with his dad, although how he continued to bring them into his life was a mystery. Either way, Josh spent as little time at home as possible.

So, where did a latchkey kid go to get away from home? Well, anywhere else. Shooting hoops at the local park, running along the river, or hanging out with his friends.

Well ... friend.

“Aw shit, did you see Jay’s face?” Teddy chuckled as he kicked a rock, watching it plop into the river and scaring away a bird. “Think I busted one of his teeth.”

“You didn’t have to,” Joshua said, stooping to pick up a smooth stone. He cocked his arm, flinging it across the gentle surface of the water, skipping it four times before it sank unceremoniously into the depths below.

“Tsk, little shit had it coming. I told him not to mess with you.”

Teddy was always like this, putting the other kids in line. Joshua didn’t know why, but Teddy seemed to have a soft spot for him, always looking out for him. Teddy’s dad was a strict army officer, and never seemed to be able to leave it at work. He always scared Joshua, which was why they didn’t hang out at Teddy’s place. Maybe that was why Teddy didn’t take shit from the others, because he had to take it from his dad. Anytime Joshua would ask, Teddy would just shrug it off and change the subject.

“Yeah, well, now we can’t play lazertag anymore,” Joshua grumbled, searching the riverbed for another skipping stone before finding a palm-sized one.