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Rated: 18+ · Book · Action/Adventure · #1107715
A quick introduction to Virtue, the main character, and his exploits of woman.

I answered my cell phone by the third ring. It was the alarm company. I was really hoping that it would be somebody else, anybody else.
“Hello, Virtue?”
I had already answered the phone, but for some reason my head was still ringing.
“…Virtue?”
“Umm, haa… hello.” I replied
“I’m sorry to wake you up, but one of the silent alarms just went off in the west end of the warehouse. Would you like us to dispatch the police?”
“Yea… And I am on my way.”
I stay in bed and look around the room in an attempt to orient my blurry vision. The place looks a lot smaller and messier than it did before I had knocked out. The smell of alcohol still lingering in the apartment reminds me of my hangover. As I get up and stumble across the darkness searching for my scattered clothes, I bump into the exposed wooden corner of the bed, which sends a bone chilling pain up my shin. If only I can remember where I left my god damn underwear…
“What’s the matter, sweetie?”
…Or her name.
“Oh nothing, the fucking alarm company called me. They think somebody broke into the place. It’s probably just a false alarm.” I answer, trying my hardest to contain my frustration. “Have you seen my clothes?”
She leans over to turn on the table lamp while giggling.
“You think this is funny?”
“I think that you hobbling around my apartment angry and naked is.”
“Whatever, Have you seen my underwear around here?”
She pulls them out from under the bed sheets with a silly little smirk on her face, dangling them in front, and then snatches them back annoyingly when I reach to grab them, shooting her face forward, puckering up her lips, with her eyes closed. I give in to her ridiculous little game and kiss her to save time.
“Have you seen my keys, or am I gonna have to give you a quickie for those.”
“They are still in your pants silly,” she answers with that stupid little smirk again, “which are draped over the coffee table.”
“Thank you.”
I couldn’t wait to get out of the apartment. That was, until I was actually in the hallway. The lights shot right through my pupils, piercing through my brain. I had to squint my eyelids to protect me from the cross-fire. I would promise myself that I was never going to drink again; but, I never was a good liar. I have; however, been good at making money, lots of it. Now at four in the morning I am suffering the downside of my success. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder: why couldn’t I work at a fast food joint and dream of being a rock star? Then I could get high and stay sleeping until three in the afternoon, like a normal person in their mid-twenties. That was until I made it down the parking lot. I saw the answer right in front of my face. Looking at my Mercedes, it occurred to me. I practically am a rock star.

I guess that last night; I didn’t realize how close “what’s her name’s” apartment is to my place of business. I pull into a parking spot in front of the showroom, and at first glace everything seemed to be in order. The main entrance door was swallowed by the shadow of an oak tree that ran up the left side of the building with extended branches that hung over the barb-wired fence that surrounds the warehouse. I open my glove box and reach for my Glock, take a deep breathe and slide the gun down the small of my back. This was nothing new to me. Getting called at the middle of the night by the alarm company has become routine, usually one of the idiotic warehouse employees left a stack of boxes in front of the sensors and the A/C rocks them back and forth, or a stray cat runs across the warehouse and triggers one of the motion sensors. So, I figure by the time that I search the place, the police will get here and I can tell them it is all clear.
I fumble through my pocket for my keys once again, this time my coordination has improved and I slip it in the keyhole with relative ease. The door opens and I step in to be greeted by the beeps of the alarm and the smell of humidity. After stopping for a second, to see how the moonlight sneaking in through the window gives wings to the dust particles that are brought to life by the glow; I hit the lights and watch them disappear, then type in the alarm code. A look around the showroom shows me that everything seems to be in order, the clothes that sit on the rails that run along the walls are all neatly hung, and none of the middle racks appeared to have been tampered with. The fans of the computers are the only things that bring sounds to a lifeless room. I walk over to the Zephyrhills machine poor myself a glass of refreshing water and follow the long narrow hallway out to the warehouse.
The smell of urine fermenting out of the warehouse bathroom chokes me and dares me to vomit. I almost feel sorry for the clean up crew that comes in on Monday morning to deal with this contamination. It is just as dead in the warehouse as it was in the storage room, complete silence, only my throbbing headache to keep me company. I walk down the aisles of boxes that serve as a retirement community to thick layers of dust. After a quick examination, I can see that my employees might not have been as incompetent as I was hoping for, because all of the sensors were clear. Now all I have to do is go back inside, check my office, and make sure the safe is ok, and then I can go home to a couple of Tylenols and a border-line coma.
My office looks exactly how I left it. The room is dim and the only source of light comes from my screen saver. Digital fishes swim across my computer monitor, making soothing aquatic sounds, which draws my attention to my desk, realizing that I still have documents spread across in a gigantic mess. It is what I was working on before I left: my grandfather’s funeral arrangements.

Ralph and Maggie took the protective role neglected by my mother. I couldn’t tell you her general whereabouts at this moment or for the last thirteen years, for that matter. I could tell you anything and everything about my grandparents. My most vivid memory is looking at my grandpa through my tearful eyes as he tried to make sense of my mother’s abandoning me.
“I can imagine how much it hurts what you’re going through.” He told me while exhaling a Marlboro, taking breaks in his speech to reload his lungs with cigarette smoke. “In a way I kind of feel like it is my fault. Maggie and I were too busy with work to watch over your mother all the time and I guess that’s why she turned out the way she did. All we wanted to do was provided her with the life that we never had. But even through all of her mischief, I would never have imaged her to be the type of woman that would desert a son for drugs and a pimp. Virtue, I swear I only wanted to provide a good life for my family. I promise that I won’t let the same thing happen to you. Maggie and I will raise you like if you were our own son.”
He kept his word. He also left behind a wife with Alzheimer, a prostitute daughter and millionaire grandson. I can feel my stomach turning, and my eyes misting up, but I won’t cry. Oh no, I rather have another drink and throw my fist up against the world. But before all of that I have to make sure that my money is safe. Realizing that I had been zoned out staring into space for the last two minutes, I make my away around my mahogany desk and saunter over to the safe. The safe is to hold all the cash transactions that went on in the week until I can make the deposits on Mondays. I have to admit. No matter how old I get. I still love the feeling of dialing in the code and cranking it open. It makes me feel like one of the big shot mobster in those old black and white movies.
I chuckle to myself and start to dial in the code. The water really helped, because now I am feeling a lot more lucid. Even though, I failed twice dialing in the code. I need to get focused: Seven…. Thirteen… Wait! What’s that? …..Someone’s whispering.
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