You’re only telling me to do this because you don’t want to.

Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Current Date: March 28, 4024

Character: Samuel Jelen
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 44, physically about 25
Current residence: Red Belt Asteroid
 

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Gossip in the Bird House is hardly an unknown. I try not to listen to any of it, but the clients themselves often like to talk at us, or even just rarely so—in my case, as is—talk with us. So sure, at times you’ll overhear things and it’ll stick with you, you might talk about it with the others in the house and whenever the client pops up next time, you might be a little curious about that very rumour.

I’ll be honest, whatever clients talk about while they’re with me tends to stay in that room. Once they’re gone, it’s like there’s a switch and I honestly don’t even really remember whatever it was they were talking about. It’s just like that for me. I’m not all that focused on what little they have to say when they come to me. They’re with me for a good bit of pleasure, a little bit of pain—for some—and a fair bit of domineering—for a good few others.

So, I’m not exactly interested in listening to you talk about how your wife or your partner doesn’t please you anymore. Though like most of the others, I care very little for cheaters. They pay their fees, so they can do as they wish, but that adds a marker to their files, and they rarely end up making it past the door more than once or twice after that.

If I generalize a little, I know that in the eyes of a lot of people, we’re just whores—which, fine, we are—but I would like to believe that we all have a sense of right and wrong. While we are physically just there for the pleasure of others, we don’t often entertain the likes of cheaters, abusers, and others that have any sort of a criminal background.

So yes, cheaters are often soft blacklisted, in which there’s a note added to their files and any time they might want to come about, even if we’re present and free, they’re told that we’re unavailable until they just get tired of us being constantly unavailable to them and they move on to another house. Anyone with a criminal background, however—those who do not pass the ID check that serves as a quick background check—are just flat-out barred from the building and our services.

Just about everyone else, if you are of age, and preferably male though we’ve had some female visitors over the years, not that any of us are really interested in that, is welcome.

Now and again, we’ll get pairs coming in. This happened just a few days ago as I was walking my client back down the stairs and back to the door. I can behave myself as is and walk a sated, and slightly physically unstable client back to the door. It doesn’t happen often as the clients can walk themselves back out just fine but anyway.

I couldn’t tell if they were brothers, father and son, cousins, or even just friends, not that it really mattered. Again, this falls under the fact that I have little care for their personal information since they also are not here to get to know us better—usually. One was nudging the other closer to the front desk while the one being nudged was complaining about how the idiot pushing him was only telling him to do this—register, I suppose—because he didn’t want to do it.

I might have breathed out a slight snort in their presence as I closed the door behind my client after he left, and it stopped both of them in their tracks. It clearly had nothing to do with the fact that I towered over both of them, and I was only wearing my post-session robe. I admit that it left nothing to the imagination, and I have nothing to hide. The other birds have all seen me—and I’ve seen every single one of them—in different states of undress, the people who have shifts at the front desk, however, are different every so often but, again, I have nothing to hide.

They both looked me up and down—in discomfort, I could tell—and very promptly turned right around and went out the door without a single word more. The clerk gave me an amused smile and it was clear he was trying not to laugh. I shrugged a little and just went right back up. I had no one else lined up for the next short while and it would give me a moment to straighten out the sheets, change the protective cover and wash up just a little.

If neither one of these two idiots had wanted to come in, they should have just stayed outside. I have no love for the ones who come to us on a dare, especially the macho, extra manly ones that claim to be as straight as a straight line might ever be, but once we’re done with them, they’re more than plenty ready to come back around.

Final Word Count: 849

I’m all out of good ideas. This is all I have left. Take it or leave it.

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Characters: Samuel Jelen
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 42, physically about 25
Current residence: Red Belt Asteroid
Final Word Count: 770 words
 

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There are days when you just can’t be bothered with anything. Those very days are uncommon, but they do happen. Thankfully, for the most part, I’ve only had to deal with them when I was off from work. In a way, I think that my brain, or even possibly just my body, really, knows that I can’t just sit back and do nothing when I have clients coming in. The body—or brain, whichever—knows that there needs to be a certain focus. When I’m off work, I can just lazy a little longer in bed, compared to the rest of the time, and everything can be left in an unfocused pile.

In a way, at least, that’s how I figure my brain works because, if I give it a thought and try to focus a bit on all of the years I’ve spent here, while I might not have always felt at my best while I was scheduled to work, I always did get through my nights without needing to just sit somewhere and sort of shut down.

Yesterday morning, when my final client for the night left and I essentially clocked out of the shift—we do have a system where we essentially punch in, mostly so that the front desk knows who’s there and who’s not to send clients up—all I felt like doing was change and get into bed. That’s not exactly a usual feeling for me. After a work night, I like to shower, scrub away everything, change, have a quick and light meal and then settle into bed for sleep.

My brain, yesterday morning, things turned out differently. I guess I’d been working on partial auto-pilot for a while, because I remember heading into the bathroom, washing up just in a barebone fashion with a wet cloth, disrobing what was left on my worn clothes where they were supposed to go and I was in bed.

When I woke up some hours later, I still felt like just spending more time in bed, but it was my stomach that woke me up. I know better than to ignore my stomach. To no one’s surprise, considering my size and build, I need to put away a lot of food to keep my energy up and I don’t ignore my hunger when it spikes. At least, on my days off I don’t. On work days, I eat at our set times because that’s what I have to do but I always make sure I’ve eaten enough to feel sated.

So, I got up, wandered into our kitchen and I know I ended up just sort of staring at my options. Thinking back now, I know that I could have just taken one of the prepared breakfast bowls, added in the wet ingredients and that would have been that, but my mind was on such a slow uptake that I don’t know how long I stood there, just starting. It was one of the others, coming up behind me, that sort of ended up moving me to the table with some of the food.

I don’t really have clear memories of that happening. It was all retold to me this morning when I got back up which, you know, unusual as mornings are meant for sleep, for us, and I never wake up at around that time.

They told me that one of them actually had to feed me because, even once seated at the table, I was just sort of there, stomach gurgling. It seemed to both amuse and yet worry some of them, I suppose I can’t blame them for that. Swan told me that they talked to one another, trying to find out what was wrong with me or trying to at least drag me out of whatever was going on with me, but they eventually gave up. They’d gone through all of the ideas they could have figured and that was that.

So, they finished helping me make sure I’d eaten, they wiped my face, Swan walked me back to my room, supposedly even tucked me in and that was that. I woke up the following morning. I ended up skipping on what would have been lunch and woke up at around the time we usually would have been done with our work night.

I don’t remember ever sleeping that long, but I guess I needed it. I feel better today, at least, so I can’t really complain about it. I’m just not much of a fan when my brain—or body, whichever—decides to shut down on me in this way.

I gave you, like, so many chances to prove yourself to me.

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Characters: Samuel Jelen
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 41, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 704 words
 

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There are days when I feel like I’d spent my whole life in this building but I know that’s not the case. Over the span of a few years, we all found our way here; I won’t get into the details of how that came to be as we all are similar and yet different but only those like us—both bird-based and able to shift, and preferably with a strong sex drive—can work here. That we’ve somehow managed to amass a menagerie of all different birds amuses me.

There could have been two swans, two cardinals, two macaws though I think just one of me is more than enough, thank you so much.

I have very vague memories of my childhood. I’m the oldest in our group but it so happens that I also was the first to come, I wasn’t alone, Kazuki was at my side but when we came here, it wasn’t a bird-themed brothel. It was just a brothel like any other but they needed workers and we needed the job. It’s our presence in these walls that technically ‘drew’ the others to us.

When I was six or seven, I remember living in a big building with so many other kids. I have few memories of there being adults present. There were no others with me at that time; I met Kazuki only when I was twelve. I was tall for my age, even when I was that young and a lot of the other kids seemed to be looking up to me though I’d never wanted that role. I didn’t want to be the one they all turned to because they felt they needed someone to look after them. I was just a kid, there were other kids who were older than me but so much slighter but still, somehow, even at that age, they looked up to me.

I hated it.

It put me and my young mind ‘in charge’ and it might be why I ended up where I did. I don’t have to do a whole lot of thinking at the brothel. I don’t have to tell anyone how to do anything unless they’re clients who get off on that sort of thing; they’re not common but they’re not that rare and I’m fine with that.

I remember one particular situation in these young years where an older boy—he must have been three or four years older than me, really—kept on coming to me and telling me that he’d given me so many chances for me to prove myself to him and every time he’d do that, I know I ended up staring at him blank-eyed because I had no idea what it was all about.

Only years later, just before I met Kazuki and we left this place behind, did I learn that he’d been the leader of another ‘gang’ that had also lived in the area our group had and he’d been giving me so-called chances to prove myself to him and others that I was harmless but somehow, I always kept on heading right back into his territory.

Just, think about it. We were kids, we were hungry and most of us were little pickpockets and thieves, it’s how we managed to survive through it all. Thankfully, the seasons were mild most of the time and we only lost other kids to hunger and not the cold but still.

It wasn’t a pleasant childhood and even with the other keepers of the brothel, I couldn’t complain about how things were happening or being run. I had a roof, I had food, a bed and clothes, I wasn’t treated all that badly though I could have been treated better—thank you Sal—and my life wasn’t bad. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t bad.

A few years down the road, the rest of our little bird-family came together as the owner slowly sold off the other workers to other brothels and brought in others like us. With a sex drive like you wouldn’t believe and our looks based on birds. It’s how we became what we are, as far as that brothel is concerned.

Maybe you could tickle them.

 
Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Characters: Samuel Jelen
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 40, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 650 words
 

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Sal took surprisingly well to the idea of giving us days off on rotations. We don’t get two days off every seven days but every eleven days, since there are eleven of us. That means that our days off are never the same from one time to the next but to be quite honest, I don’t know. The rotation board is in the kitchen where the clients have no access to. It’s what made the most sense.

Most clients didn’t even really notice. I suppose they’re not there to take note of whether or not we’re available on the day of their visits or not. Most of the regulars are used to the fact that if they come and we’re busy with someone else, they can either pick another Bird or come back another day or, sure, set up a meeting time. Some have done it but most tend to pick another bird since they’ve come for the pleasure and aren’t sold on having to come another day.

It feels easier to go through our days with the days off. That we’ve done this as long as we have without them is something that confuses me but Sal has only been with us for the last decade or so, so I suppose it makes sense, in a way. Prior owners and caretakers didn’t care quite as much about us as Sal does. So long as the income flowed in, all was fine for them.

I don’t think it’s the days off that helped me with my sleeplessness, however. I brought the idea up after three months of absolute exhaustion where I knew I hadn’t managed more than a couple of hours of sleep at night for the last months and I had hoped it would have helped but it didn’t.

From that point on, even the others started to bring up even crazier ideas and I admit that most of them did make me smile a little. At one point, I think after we’d exhausted everything else, someone said that maybe I just needed a good bit of tickling and I sort of give them the stink eye for that one. I’m stupidly ticklish and I don’t feel comfortable when I’m being tickled, so that’s a hard pass for me.

In the long run, I ended up going into a clinic. I spent two days there, both under observation and I came back with some pills. According to them, I had something or other going health-wise that I needed to take these pills for about a month and I’d be fine afterwards.

One of the things they didn’t tell me was that some of the side effects were almost worse than the lack of proper sleep and I turned into an arsehole for a month. The others had to remind me to keep breathing because I was going to maim some poor client had said the wrong thing.

On the upside, my sleeping nights were getting a little longer as time went by but I still was more than irritable. It’s only once I was done with the pills that I really noticed the biggest difference. The usual cup of tea before I could get to sleep and I was out like a light, I felt like a different person come morning. Everyone told me as much as well and even a few clients seemed to let me know that there was something different about me.

I’m not going to lie; I’ve changed a few things about my diets and about what I do during my time off. I don’t know what set off this ‘illness’ in the first place but I’m in no rush to go through the whole thing over again. I’m not an aggressive person, to begin with, and to feel that aggression just bubbling beneath the surface every day was very disquieting. No thank you.

I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in months.

Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Characters: Samuel Jelen
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 38, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 533 words

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Clients come, clients go. If I weren’t so tired, I would find this amusing. However, this is exactly what clients do when they’re here with us, they come. They climax, ejaculate, spill on the sheets, up our asses, on our face, you name it.

I usually have no real issues with this but I haven’t managed to really get a proper night’s sleep in months. I don’t know what’s waking me up in the middle of my sleep cycle but it’s enough to actually keep me from falling back to sleep and that is what’s been making me a pretty grumpy Macaw.

Not that I’ve taken it out on anyone or done anything of the sorts but I think my companions have noticed as much, if my clients haven’t, because my clients usually like a domineering spirit and the grumpiness comes with it, for them.

I have been offered teas, soothing massages and a whole world of things for me to try and sleep more but none of it really works and I feel like I’m just about to crumble to pieces or something of the sorts and there is no comfort to be found in that thought. I don’t want to have to go elsewhere, even if just for a week or three so I can be properly diagnosed. This is my home, my life. Clients included in that description even though I wish they’d screw off now and again, just let us have a day off of something.

A day off might be the one thing I do need, in the end. We could start a rotation of sorts, the clients might not like it at first but if we burn out from all of this work, what’s the point? It’s been years since any of us have had more than our regular ‘off’ hours for ourselves and those tend to be used for resting up, cleaning, putting things away, feeding ourselves. I’ll have to bring it up to Sal, I don’t know why it hasn’t really been given any thought before but it would make sense.

We each get two days off, or even just one but not all at once. Say, I could get today and tomorrow, Hummingbird could get tomorrow and the day after and so on. I think it could do some good, in a way. Certainly, there would always be two whores less on the floor but isn’t that better than potentially losing out on all of us burning out and being unable to work for more than just a couple of days altogether? It makes sense to me.

All of this because I’m tired, I’m exhausted. I do sleep, I know I do, but it’s nowhere near being enough to be considered decent sleep and that is the main issue at this point. I feel like I’m going to end up being sloppy if this keeps up and no one wants a sloppy whore for pleasure, that’s just asking for trouble.

I’ll bring the idea up to Sal and hope he’ll be agreeable to it. He’s certainly been good to us since he got the place, so I think he might just go for it.

Facing the Inner Demons

Timeline/World: Darkness of Space – Bird Harem
Characters: Samuel Jelen aka Macaw
Race: Demon – Sex
Age: 37, physically 25
Final Word Count: 517 words

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When you are born into this life, there is always a question or two just at the edge of your mind, questions that make you.. well question yourself. I was not born anywhere near this asteroid belt, near this mansion we call our own, but I have lived here since I was very young, most of us have though since Sal took over, there has been no one new. There would be room but I don’t know that anyone would willingly come to serve in a house like ours, where men come to pay for sex.

As the years passed, I came to have more clients request my presence. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it, most saw my size in a general way and would back away, afraid of being torn up. I guess people talk however. I may be tall and intimidating for most but I am far from a brute, unless it is asked of me. When they come to our harem, they come for pleasure and if the client is not satisfied, we usually are not. Rules have changed with Sal and it is for the better.

I live a life where I am paid to have sex with others, do I enjoy it? At first I denied it vehemently. I didn’t want to enjoy it, it wasn’t right that I was enjoying it, after all, just.. absolutely not right, it was wrong on all fronts. It didn’t make sense. It took talking with the rest of my brothers, though we are not related by blood, to realize that I was not the only one who was in denial about it all but was slowly beginning to be on the fence.

It is somewhat in our blood, as it is. We do not need the sex to be fed, those are stories of old about another race altogether but we do have a little something in us that make these fantasies our clients have, come to near reality.

Accepting what I am, what I’ll always be, made it easier to give the clients what they wanted, it made it easier to even let the clients who wanted it a little rougher, get just what they wanted, it’s like a switch in my brain, it takes over and allows just enough power into my veins to make it all work out.

While I now enjoy the sex in ways I seriously could not during the first few years, it will not change that my preferred moment of the day is when I can curl up with one of my brothers, just settling close and relaxing, either in the early mornings or in the afternoons, before our days usually begin.

It took me years before I was able to enjoy that kind of thing, even when Sal first came in, I couldn’t. I was the tall, quiet, intimidating one who didn’t talk much or interact much, else than to play protector over my much smaller companions. I am more than glad that this has changed, I wouldn’t want it any other way.