(New) Love Addict’s RPG Vol. 2 Ch. 73 (Patreon)

If you didn’t see announcement, this is a new chapter and the old 73 is now 74. I need to make a few edits to 74 to account for this- namely reference that Zoe eventually showered and have her more flustered when she sees Oliver in the morning. Just a few lines. I’ll do that later.

Safe to say I’m back to full power- I did over 4K words today and knocked this one out in one sitting, editing and all.

I quite like what came out of it. I enjoy doing psychological breakdowns, especially of broken characters like Zoe. I was trying to carefully avoid specifics about why she’s like this but I think her current thoughts come off as believable and if it wasn’t obvious this really shows off how deep her parallels to Oliver run.

Skip this part if you haven’t read the outline and don’t want spoilers, but the incident is going to be softened by quite a bit. Zoe will be shown struggling against the temptation not to go and stream, but she just isn’t at the point where she can fight it off alone and Mia urging her not to fucking bother won’t exactly help. Oliver is going to be much more determined than in the outline, too, I think, as he’ll get a sense for how bad Zoe’s issues are and it’s core to his character that he can’t not try and help (a cute girl) in that position. Especially when they both essentially suffered from different types of internet addiction. He’ll be harsh with her on Sunday when confronting her, but ultimately, Zoe will ask be the one to ask him for help changing instead of it being forced on her.

75 will come out tomorrow, the text is done I just don’t wanna edit it lmao.

***

Zoe knew better than anyone she needed to stop drinking this fucking poison. Her last can of gulpies was wearing off late at night as she laid on the couch, gaming on her Vapor Dock. The crash was something else, like her heart was threatening to burst out of her ribcage.

"Fuckin' Christ..." she groaned, shutting off her Dock without even bothering to save her progress in Early Access Roguelite #637, or whatever the fuck she was even playing. It was looking like she might actually sleep for two nights in a row.

And even now, all I can fuckin' think about is slamming another can... never should've taken that stupid sponsorship in the first place. That fuckin' forty-eight pack they sent me was a trap...

Forget sleep. Zoe could use a shower. Sweat oozed out of her facial pores, greasing her up something fierce. She was probably close to smelling like one of her fans.

Zoe tried getting up, which was the biggest mistake of her night. Her head swirled, the world revolving around her. Lightheadedness hit her like a fist to the face, and she gave up before she even made it halfway to sitting.

"God, he was right... this shit is radioactive piss..." Zoe angrily eyed the empty can.

Not having much else to do, she shut her eyes. Even sleep wouldn't take her. Her mind raced far too much, leaving her trapped in the uncomfortable haze between dreams and waking life.

Guess I'll wait this out and shower later on, then...

For how long Zoe was left there alone with only her thoughts to keep her company, she couldn't say. In this nigh-delirious state, Oliver and Mia kept popping up at the forefront of her mind. She missed them. They were right there in Mia's bedroom, but she still somehow missed them.

There was nothing Zoe hated more than being alone.

It wasn't like she didn't get it. They were a couple. A new one, at that. All they wanted was to be all over each other, and now that she'd had a tiny taste of what that was like, Zoe didn't blame them.

She didn't fully understand it, but she understood a lot more than she used to. Sitting on his lap. Kissing him. Getting felt up by him. Having Mia watch, even. It took her time to process, but Zoe wasn't in denial.

She knew she liked it- all of it.

But she didn't get the same thing out of it that Mia did. Zoe liked the guy more than it was maybe appropriate to like someone after knowing them for two days- you latched on to friendly faces quickly as a reclusive hermit- but she wasn't in love with him. What felt mind-numbingly great for her best friend was akin to a mild, 'hey, this touching each other thing is actually pretty nice' for her.

Zoe thought she had it all. She made a lot of money, had a nice place where she lived with her best friend, and had thousands upon thousands of fans who gave her what her heart desired more than anything else whenever she so much as posted to her social media accounts.

She let her addiction spiral. Let herself believe that getting as much attention from as many different people as possible was more important than getting it from people she actually cared about.

Zoe bit her lip.

Mia looked so hopeful when she asked me about changing my schedule earlier... I... I can't just do that out of the blue, but... can I?

Zoe thought about it, and her mind spiraled even further.

What if all of her fans went away? What if she really did need their constant adoration to make it through the day? What if she gave it all up, only to somehow fuck things up with Mia? Then nobody would love her, and she'd be right back where she started- all alone in a dark room, with only pixels and polygons for friends.

No. Never again. Mia loves me. Becca loves me. My fans love me. I can make this work- normal people balance work and real life, how hard can it be? Maybe I'll start taking a couple hours off on weekends? Yeah. It wouldn't be much, but I could work up from there, I-

Oliver moaned loudly from within Mia's room, snapping Zoe out of it.

She managed to crane her neck over to look down the hall, now blushing furiously. "The fuck are they doing in there...?"

Whatever they were up to, the dude was having the time of his life. He kept making sounds. Cute, adorable fucking sounds. Zoe's mouth went dry. She couldn't hear Mia, so they definitely weren't having sex, but... what, then?

Maybe she's using her hands again...

It made her flashback to when she'd barged in at the height of her caffeine rush right after getting temp band. She didn't think a single thing about all that sex stuff back when it was happening. She thought about it a few times since then, though. That face of his when he was blasting rope. The way he covered her face. The size of him, and whether or not someone as small as Mia could even take all that.

Oliver kept moaning louder and louder, and Zoe kept burning up.

What the fuck... does it really feel so much better when you love someone else...?

She bit her lip. Wiggled her hips. Ground her thighs.

Zoe was weak, tired, delirious.

Horny.

I don't get it.

I don't.

I don't, I don't, I don't...!!

Her hand slipped into her pajama pants, pushing past her bush to find something she wasn't used to. Wetness. She'd been horny before, but this?

This was new.

Zoe made the most of it and rubbed herself raw, but she didn't do this often. She sucked at it. Anything close to resembling a climax eluded her, which wasn't the case for Oliver.

He soon let out the biggest and cutest moan she'd heard out of him yet, and in her stupid, confused state of arousal, the only thing Zoe felt was jealous about not getting to see whatever face he was making for herself. She masturbated through these new and complex emotions, failing to get herself off.

Thankfully, round two started up in Mia's bedroom only a few minutes later, giving her plenty more to work with.

Zoe was pretty sure she heard some slapping sounds and strange noises coming out of Mia this time around. She wondered what her friend looked like when Olive was doing his thing. What kind of cute faces she made.

It almost got her where she wanted to go, which only added to Zoe's confusion. She'd never had thoughts like that before, but it seemed like anything was on the table now that she was in the midst of a sexual renaissance...

Zoe was close.

So close- but Oliver and Mia eventually stopped, and the moment was gone.

"Fuckin' fuck, fuck, fuckity FUCK...!" Zoe hissed in futility, keeping her volume down so no one heard. Now she was tired, delirious, lonely, and more sexually frustrated than she'd ever been. Probably needed a shower about twice as much as before, too.

Laying there in about fifteen types of abject misery and tired of being who she was, Zoe took a long look at herself.

Not every person in the world needed love to get by. Plenty of people didn't. They didn't want to be touched or enter relationships, which was fine.

Zoe was never one of these people.

Love was all she ever wanted. Familial love, platonic love, romantic love... it didn't matter, she'd take and take and take whatever she could get, and before she knew it, she wound up with an addiction to one of the worst kinds.

Fake love.

Zoe was an idol, a golden calf who built a world for herself where horny losers showered her with nonstop parasocial affection- and none of it was real.

Not compared to what Mia had found for herself.

I don't get it, Zoe stared at the ceiling. I don't fucking get it at all, but...

I want to...

And that would never happen if she didn't start making some changes around here. She didn't need a better balance between work and life; she needed the balance to tilt away from work and toward life- but Zoe wasn't mentally prepared for all that. Not yet. She was scared and still addicted to the shit she already had- but in time, all that would pass.

That's all she needed.

More time to learn from their example, discover more about herself, and muster up the willpower to break her chains to change herself for the better.

Zoe's temp ban still had five days to go.