AMA - The Divorcee: Day 01

Introduction: I plan for this branch to have a linear story following a divorcee who gets the app, and it helps him realize that life isn't so bad after divorce. I plan to explore themes similar to the David Walker branch by Fantasy, ultimately building a romantic harem by the end. If you're familiar with that branch, the AMA in this will closely follow how it works in that branch as well. I will also eventually explore an incestuous relationship (father-daughter), so hopefully you're into that. Other kinks may appear as the story goes along. Tone-wise, it may get a bit dramatic (trigger warning for suicidal thoughts in the beginning), but I do plan to have this mostly be light-hearted in tone.

You wonder if it would be instantaneous.

It should be... but maybe the roof would be a safer bet.

You look down to the alley below from the external fire escape connected to your apartment on the 3rd floor of your apartment building, smoking a cigarette, and contemplating for the nth time if falling three stories is enough to give you a quick and painless way to go. You'd go to the roof to increase your chances but that means climbing stairs; and you know, based on previous attempts, you'll chicken out before you even reach the top.

You've been contemplating it since the divorce had been finalized. Not enough that you'll push through with it, but frequent enough that you know one more bad day and you just might.

You try to remind yourself of all the reasons why you need to keep chugging along but only one really comes to mind -- your 19 year old daughter, Stella.

She would probably curse you to rot in hell in her eulogy if you decide to leave her alone with her mom. She hates your ex-wife, Diane, as much as you do or maybe even moreso, for cheating on you with her co-worker, Ron. Being an adult when the divorce happened, custody was no longer an issue and she basically promised her mom she would never forgive her when she heard why you and her mother were breaking up.

In retrospect, a part of you didn't want her to have that kind of strained relationship with her mother; but at that time, it was the only painful blow you could deal to Diane and you relished in the pain your daughter caused her mother when she said those words.

That being said, Stella was already an adult and going to college, so maybe her dad taking a dirt nap wouldn't be such a big deal for her. She can take care of herself now. Plus, she has a full athletic scholarship for volleyball, so she doesn't have to worry about tuition. Her inheritance from you going splat in an alley should probably allow her to live comfortably too, in case she wants to push through with the non-forgiveness plan she has towards her mother. Hell, maybe it could even mend that relationship since you'll force them to grieve together.

Yeah, right. Like Diane gives a shit about you anymore. She didn't even give a shit about the life you built together in the divorce proceedings. She only asked for her personal belongings. She let you keep the apartment, didn't argue for visitation rights, even agreed to forfeit everything inside the joint bank account as well as any royalties from the previous books you've gotten published. She wanted nothing to do with you anymore. Probably why the divorce proceedings went so smoothly. You hated her for that. It made you feel like yesterday's garbage. Almost 20 years together, including the time before you got married. Gave it all up -- like it was nothing.

"Fuck!" you exclaim, as the cigarette burned your fingers. You've been so lost in thought that you forgot about the cigarette you were smoking and just had it burn out with probably only dragging on it twice. What a waste --

Just like your marriage.

Just like your life.

You grip the metal railing of the fire escape, playing chicken with the concrete of the alley below like you've done countless times now.

You actually lift your leg over the metal railing this time.

~ DING DONG ~

Huh. Saved by the bell.

CHAPTER 3.1

What happens next?

You continue living.

"You asshole!" your daughter, Stella, shouts at you as you open the door to your apartment. "You were supposed to pick us up this morning!" she continues to shout at you.

"Hey! Language!" You reactively say, your parental instincts kicking in. "And also, you're not the pizza delivery guy" you tell her jokingly. You actually were just thinking it could be the pizza guy. It's not your fault your daughter decided to surprise you by coming home early for her summer break.

"Not funny dad. I've been calling you all morning! I can't believe you flaked on me!" Stella shouted.

"What? I'm not supposed to pick you up until Saturday right?" you asked her genuinely confused.

"What day do you think it is?" she asks you.

Uhhhh...

"It's Saturday, Dad! The day I told you to pick us up LAST week!" she shouts at you before you could reply.

Oh shit.

She pushes you aside so she can enter the apartment, dragging her suitcase inside, clearly furious. She takes out her phone and puts it to her ear, apparently calling someone. You hope it's not her mother. Although, you wouldn't blame her for giving up on you after you apparently skipped an entire week in your brain.

You hear the buzzing noises of your phone on the couch. Stella goes to where the vibrating noise is and picks up an empty pizza box that was on your couch and throws it forcefully to the side.

Shit. You didn't realize how much you've been living like a bum recently. You look around and you realize your place is a mess.

"So your phone does fucking work" she shouts at you as she looks at the screen. "Oh, look. 16 missed calls, and 33 unread messages since LAST week. ALL FROM ME" she continues. You notice the light from your phone's screen die so she stops looking at it, and starts looking at you.

"I don't know if it's sadder that I'm the only person who tried to contact you in a week or that the only person who tried to contact you was just doing so to remind you that YOU'RE PICKING THEM UP TODAY." she shouted the last few words clapping her hands at every word for emphasis.

"You had one fucking job, Dad." Her eyes are getting red and beginning to tear up.

She finally takes a deep breath through her nose, after deservedly tearing you a new one. But the worst part was what came next.

"This was a mistake." she said with a coldness in her voice. A part of you died a little hearing those words.

"I should've fucking known", now all of you feels dead.

She shoves your phone to your chest as a way to forcefully hand it to you and push you out of her way at the same time, and walks by you towards the door.

She stops herself by the doorway though. Gripping the side of the frame as if it's the only thing keeping her up. "You're the only family I have left, Dad. I put all my chips on you. So get your shit together." She addresses you, with her back still towards you. "Please."

The last word was obviously difficult for her to say. She was pleading with you, but it was also an ultimatum at the same time. She was choking up, trying to hold back tears, until she finally walked down the hallway towards the stairs.

You remain standing on the spot speechless. You deserved all of that, and probably more. You still stupidly have your hand to your chest holding your phone on the spot where she shoved you after opening the door.

"Well this is awkward," someone says from the hallway. You see a tall brunette show herself through the doorway, smiling and awkwardly raising her hand to say hi.

"Hey, Mr. Craig. It's nice to see you again."

CHAPTER 4.1

Who is it?

Cassie.

"Hi?" you ask the brunette through the doorway awkwardly.

You have a vague idea who this girl might be, while she obviously knows who you are. If your guess is correct, your memories of her aren't close to what she looks like now, since you clearly have no recollection of the gorgeous woman standing before you.

"It's okay Mr. Craig. I know it's been a while. It's me, Cassie? I'm Sylvie's daughter from 307 before we moved out. You used to babysit me?" she said, her tone filled with curiosity if any of what she said rings any bells.

"Yeah. Yeah. Cassie. Hi. Sylvie's daughter." you mutter, not realizing you just repeated what she told you; but you were right in your guess, and you remember her more clearly now. She was probably around 13 or 14 when they moved out. You remember Sylvie basically treating you and Diane like a free babysitting service so she could go and party while she left her daughter in your care.

She was one of Stella's classmates who also lived in the same building, and with Sylvie forcing her on you and Diane every chance she got, she and Stella became best friends all throughout their childhood.

After more memories come flooding back, you really can't believe your eyes when you look at her. You remember the last time you saw her, she was a cute middle school kid, barely reaching your chest in height. She's almost as tall as you now, and being 6'3", she's gotta be at least 6' tall. You remember she was always a cute kid, but you never would have expected her to grow up into such an attractive young woman. She really can't be the young girl you used to babysit. You feel even creepier for finding her attractive since, for a brief period of time, you considered her like a second daughter.

You finally snap out of your trip down memory lane and realize Cassie's still standing in the hallway looking at you expectantly. You realize you may be staring and break away from looking at her, and notice she has a suitcase next to her. You slowly try to connect the dots in your head, but then remember the conversation you had with Stella over the phone last week. Cassie's here to stay over for the entirety of their summer break.

Shit.

You're reminded of the mess your apartment is right now.

"I'm really sorry to intrude Mr. Craig, I thought Stella told you about it already, and got your approval" she says to you, probably reading into the dumb look you had when you were trying to piece it together.

"Oh - uh - she did. I - uh - I just..." you try to explain but she cuts you off.

"Don't worry about it Mr. Craig. I understand. Heard about what happened from Stella" she tells you.

"I - uh - I'd invite you in, but - uh -" you really don't want her to see the state of the place, since it's probably a perfect encapsulation of the state of you as well. "Can you give me five minutes to try and clean up the place?" you ask her.

"Don't worry about me Mr. Craig. How about I help you clean up, and you go find Cassie and catch up with her? I'm sure you have a lot to talk about"

"No. I can't have you do that alone. Stella's just probably sitting in the stoop trying to calm herself down. She'll be back." you reply, a hand rubbing the nape of your neck.

"No, really. It's okay. It's the least I can do for you... for agreeing to let me stay the entire summer, I mean" she answers you. "Plus, I'm sure Stella would rather have you talk to her to calm her down than me." she adds.

"I'm not so sure about that" you tell her.

"Trust me. She'd be more pissed off to hear me side with you than with her. She kinda went overboard in my opinion." she said with a wry smile. You return her wry smile but shake your head in disagreement. That was your daughter going easy on you.

"I really hate to impose, Mr. Craig, but can I come in?" the question makes you jolt as you realize you've been having this conversation while she was still in the hallway.

"I'm sorry, yeah. Make yourself at home." you tell her as you let her in. She drags her suitcase inside your apartment and stops a few steps into the living room. "It really is just like I remember it." she says with hands on her slender hips. You start to notice how her jean shorts hug her round butt and... you mentally slap yourself. You used to babysit this girl, stop it.

"Anyway, I'll get started here and you should really go see what Stella's up to" she tells you. Before you can protest she adds, "I insist. Please. She needs you more than she'd like to admit." The last thing she said was what made you lose any hesitation you were feeling about looking for Stella. You haven't really taken into consideration how Stella's really been feeling about the divorce.

"Yeah - um, thanks Cassie. Are you sure about this?" you ask her, motioning your hands to show your awareness of how much of a mess the apartment is right now. "Positive" she replies with a smile and without hesitation.

You move towards the door to leave until you hear Cassie shout for you, "OH! Mr. Craig!" You turn around to see what made her call out for you.

She has a shy smile, with a little lip bite of her lower lip. She points towards what you assume is your crotch area.

"You might want to put some pants on."

CHAPTER 5.1

Do you put some pants on?

Put some pants on, and go to your daughter.

You're downstairs on the stoop of your apartment building; this was Stella's go-to place whenever she wanted to get away from you or her mom, but she's not here.

Shit. She may be a lot more disappointed in you than you thought.

You try to open your phone to try and call her but it won't light up. You realize you haven't charged it in like a week, the battery probably died after Stella had it.

Shit.

In frustration you just keep pressing the power button repeatedly knowing it won't matter if your phone's dead; but to your surprise, a logo of an app with a heart on it appears. It has the letters "AMA" underneath it. You don't remember downloading a dating app, but you wouldn't be surprised if you did in a moment of weakness and just forgot about it. What's weirding you out is that all other apps aren't being shown, just this one. Your phone screen is black as if it was off, except for the logo of this "AMA", you tap on it and the app icon disappears. The words "The Affection Multiplier" pop up on your screen, and after a few seconds gets replaced by "This is a gift! Please enjoy it!"

The hell is going on? You just want to make a call.

"We recommend reading through the glossary."

Read it? YES/NO

You try pressing the power button repeatedly again but the words remain on the screen. With no other better option you can think off, you press NO in hopes that it returns you to your home screen.

"Are you sure? New users are highly advised to read the glossary."

Read it? YES/NO

You press NO again and the words disappear but just pop up again after a few seconds. You try pressing NO again and the same thing happens.

Yup. Your phone has a virus.

You finally just tap YES to see if it does anything different.

"Welcome. The Gift of the Affection Multiplier allows your relationships with people to build five times faster. It is an always-present gift, and will affect every aspect of your social life from now on. The Affection Multiplier App is a useful resource to check the progress of your relationships with people through the use of an intuitive scoring system."

This is one elaborate virus. You understand what it's trying to tell you, but you also can't believe any of it is actually real. You skim through it and read that negative numbers mean bad relationships, while you can consider relationships with a score over 50 to be very good friends and those with a score of 100 to be loyal companions. It also says it only lists people you know and are aware of in order to keep the app's interface from cluttering.

Once you reach the end of the introductory glossary, it shows a folder of "Recent Interactions", you tap it since your phone doesn't seem to allow you to do anything outside of this virus.

To your surprise, two names are in the folder. Names that mean that if this is a virus, then this is a really targeted one; as the name of your daughter Stella is in this folder, as well as the girl you've only had contact with for the first time in years, Cassie.

- Craig, Stella - Affection Score: 76. History: Saturday, 12:34 PM (-5)

If this thing was actually real, then you know that can't be right. That score is too high. What bothers you is the history part though. The time indicates that her points went down after she tore you a new one. The time's too accurate for you not to be creeped out, but a part of you also can't believe that her outburst only lost you 5 points. Next, you open the only other profile in the folder:

- Jones, Cassandra - Affection Score: 82. History: Saturday, 12:37 PM (+41)

Love Score: 22 (+16)

Lust Score: 29 (+18)

Now you're sure this thing is fake. The glossary did explain that scores would rise five times faster than they normally would, but those numbers are ridiculous. You had one normal conversation with the girl and her score doubled. And what's these other two scores? You tap the small "i" next to them and their glossary explanation pops up.

Love Score: Gives a numerical value to the amount of romantic affection a person holds for you. It appears only when the person starts developing these feelings for you. For reference, most teenage couples go steady at scores of 25 to 35 and most happily married couples have scores ranging from 55 to 70 points. Should a person reach 100 points, they'll be completely devoted to you.

Lust score: Gives a numerical value to the amount of sexual desire a person feels towards you. A person does not necessarily need to have developed romantic feelings for them to feel lust. For reference, most sexually active individuals fluctuate from 40 to 60 points. This score is the most prone to heavily fluctuate, as sexual desire rises or drops depending on the person.

So based on these numbers, you think that would mean she has a crush on you and maybe has thoughts of banging you.

Yeah, right. A hottie like her?

...

"Ugh. I was hoping it wasn't you" you hear someone say from the bottom of the steps.

Author's Note: The AMA's introduction and glossary entries are from Fantasy's David Walker branch.

CHAPTER 6.1

Who made the remark?

Stella

"At least she got you to put some pants on," your daughter, Stella, remarks looking up at you from the bottom of the steps.

"I'm sorry baby" you immediately say upon seeing her. You pocket your phone and go down the steps to try and give her a hug. She raises her hand to tell you to not come any closer before you even reach the bottom step.

"I can smell you from here. Take a shower first and then I'll think about giving you a hug" she tells you with an obviously fake disgusted look on her face. You laugh a little at her half-joke, but you still don't come any closer. You're pretty sure a part of her means it since, now that she's mentioned it, you do smell of cigarettes and alcohol right now.

Instead, she closes the distance and comes to you, hugging your waist and resting her head on your stomach, due to the height difference caused by the steps. "I'm sorry if I called you an asshole" she apologizes.

"I deserved it, baby. I needed that wake up call" you tell her, patting the top of her head, as you're unable to return the hug at this height difference.

"I've been trying to give you a wake up call for a whole week now, Dad." She punches you playfully on the thigh. "I kinda knew you'd flake from picking us up when you weren't answering my texts."