Hey, I'm August Caeser. Ultimate Contessa, Machivelli, or whatever I feel like describing myself with. For slang. It's a manipulative bitch. Hell, manipulative isn't even slang. What do I say to people that don't know big words? I dunno, I'm like, your Groomer, I don't know, there isn't a word for it. Haven't hung out with gangsters enough to figure out the gangster slang for Constessas like myself.
My life is currently not even a proud moment for a Contessa. It's honestly lame because I had no reason to hide for the most part. And I still ruin it. I am currently in the midst of the Nuclear Apocalypse, surviving in a bunker with my family, extended families, and their friends and loved ones and whores. And some random fucks that are so new, it's annoying.
Three people, one man, two women, brought in brand new girlfriends cause they thought they loved them enough. Brought their families too cause we were too fucking generous for the Contessa in me to handle. There are, I don't even know how many different groups based on family name alone. Let alone, friend group, love life, hoe life, hell, there's businessman and soldiers with us down here.
Which they even have their families too. They claimed at the start our population in this honestly epicly huge bunker is 1,247 people. I am mad about it so hard. Even though it's like, raw for a social life. To the point I coped as always, really hard with love life potential alone.
Though everything else I hate. My family is the smallest, and we don't own the Bunker. It's my favorite Stepbro's family that owns it, Jesse. Their last name is Cato. And they are absurdly rich. My family is poor actually. It's such an offset on that alone.
But thankfully I do have one advantage thanks to them. I got to basically get my favorite job for the bunker, which was Dishwasher and helping with the Blacksmiths and Mechanics when we do something cool. But honestly, I normally only do heavy lifting and some blacksmithing. They haven't really let me fix machines yet, and I honestly avoid it to an extent. Some of those systems for the machines seem too absurd.
But I know blacksmithing well enough from videogames alone, I jump into that easily. Too easily, they put a lock on that place cause of me. I started "sneaking" in there, not. I walked in, door wasn't locked. They're mad I made like, a longsword, a knife, a metal club. And panicked when I almost made a gun. I made the frame at least, but it was ugly. They threw it away, put a lock on it, and says we all can only use the Blacksmith with supervision and permission to use the resources. Cause apparently those four items were a month's worth of steel, and we're on a weirdly tight ration schedule with our metals even. Ugh.
So I'm in the cafeteria today and of course, Lover Girl in me sees Jesse. And is bored immediately enough to approach him for a conversation. I'm wearing a casual, but still attractive outfit. Somewhat tight green sweatpants, a black sweater that's tight around my breasts, and black sneakers. I'm a black girl with skin that's equivalent to the dirt of the midwest woods or chocolate. Golden blonde hair I straighten into shoulder length hair. Gold eyes that are contacts honestly. Gold lipstick. And green and silver fingernails I painted in a weird pattern. My thumbs are alternate colors, left is silver, right is green. My index finger and middle finger are inverse with the ring finger and the pinkie. And also the colors are different patterns for the hands too. Left hands first two fingers is green. Right's are silver. Then the other fingers for left are silver. While the left's other fingers are green.
He is wearing a maintenance uniform from his old job. It's a slightly thicker cotton shirt to me, I think that's dark blue. With a collar. And dark blue pants that match it exactly, with brown steel toed shoes. He's wearing his one unique charm for the outfit, a white cowboy hat with a red brim belt.
I approach him and try making small talk.
"Hey sunshine, how's work in the Bunker going?" I say warmly.
He tries keeping a straight face. But he looks sad. As expected, he was a social butterfly with lots of friends. While unfortunately, I am the opposite. I didn't even have irl friends at this point, just internet friends. Which ummm… a lot of dead accounts happened… and I still have wi-fi… but I did new friends on a roleplay server for better or for worse.
We will discuss that server eventually, but suffice to say, it's annoying but epic. We're being too realistic for me as a roleplayer cause it's written training for the apocalypse for us all. A lot of us in this Bunker is in it, which makes it cute for the Lover Girl in me. But they get traumatized by it a lot due to how realistic combat gets. While I get mad because they oversimulate so hard, I'm always debating stupid shit like positioning, how much ammo I should have, it's such bullshit. But it's still really fun even though I have to be so overly analytical and serious with the roleplaying.
Anyway, back to my stepbro.
He smiles but there's pain.
"I think a lot of my friends died, but I'm pushing through." he says, sad but trying to be a bright face.
I frown a bit, but it's fake. I'm smiling more than I frown, so I bow my head a bit to show more sympathy than I really feel. I'm a sociopath like that, they weren't my friends. But I still try comforting him even though he probably knows I'm fake. He knows me well enough, I've revealed things like this about my emotions before.
I pat his shoulder and squeeze it a bit as a barely brazen act of comfort.
"Best I can do is offer a hug and my own friendship, Stepbro." I say, warm and sympathetic.
He smirks and considers it. I dare jump for it and hug him without him confirming it. He hugs me back for a few seconds long. To the point, he milked it more than me. He didn't break his grip at first when I tried stepping away. But not long enough. Enough to milk in my Lover Girl mind though.
I step back and assume a comfortable distance of 2, 3 feet. I dunno, I don't measure it.
"So what's your worklife here, bro? Or do you need a chill morning to cope?" I ask warmly.
"I can chat a bit, I'm not that sad August." he says, amused and annoyed with me. "Anyway, it's mainly maintenance on the pipes at the moment. Just fixing leaks and monitoring stuff like the oxygen levels, water levels, basically everything to keep the Bunker livable, safe. Oh, and I manage the farm's equipment as well so it can keep working so we don't have to leave the Bunker early. Before the radiation settles from the nukes." Jesse says, warm and a bit proud.
His voice is vaguely a bit weepy, but we both know he wants to push through. I smile and well… I get too impulsive with flirtation and blow him a kiss. Which the Contessa in me wants to abort, but it's too late. So awkward girl comes out to cope.
"Sorry, I really um… wanted a cigarette, no offense. You're cute still, but that was a cigarette thing, not blowing a kiss." I lie sheepishly.
"Surreee. I have to umm… work now. By the way, I have a girlfriend August. She lives here." Jesse says, warm but blunt.
He snickers as I can't help but react with annoyance and disappointment for a split second as I hang my head and hunch my back with disappointment. Then straighten up too fast.
"I gotcha stepbro. No worries, I've got people to flirt with on the internet still." August says warmly.
"Why did you mention that? You're making this worse." Jesse says, annoyed and amused.
I almost open my mouth to talk but my Stepmom smacks her fist against a table nearby and glares at me. I snicker, amused despite the tension. Also a woman that's honestly as hot as me, but a pale woman with black hair not wearing makeup, but still as athletic and fit as me is sitting with her. She's glaring at me with a Contessa smile. And quickly flips me off. But puts her hand down immediately and gets back to chatting with my Stepmom.
I snicker again, and take my breakfast to go. I'm gonna eat in my room to somewhat avoid the awkwardness of that room. We will deal with it eventually. Cause lover girl economy says the Cafeteria is a dating room to a major extent. And family room, every vibe really. It's where we have dinner.
So we will push through eventually for whatever I desire, good or ill. To them, at least.