Harry marveled at how quickly Aaron worked. The first semester of college was barely over and Aaron had already sanitized the base game and split the extreme scenes into a DLC.
He had even got a working title for it Master of Arcadia. It was shaping up to be an epic fantasy game where you travel the land of Arcadia amassing power and wealth while enslaving alluring female characters. By the end of the game, you are a powerful warrior-king with a harem of beautiful submissive slave-girls to torment and torture as you please.
The base game, was a simple Visual Novel with a turn based combat system and without any of the enslaving and BDSM aspects. Even without those elements, the game's player character was cold, calculating and ruthless in his pursuit of wealth and power making it the ideal male power-fantasy.
Harry himself, worked long and hard at Andre's loft, creating the most beautiful and erotic art he could, to live up to the game's rich and graphic depictions. He also cautiously introduced Aaron and his game to his two close friends, guitarists, and fellow BDSM enthusiasts, James McMillan an electrical engineering student and Mario Gonzales a nuclear engineering student. They, too, signed the same commission contract and contributed their music to the game.
A few days after their first semester exams were over, Aaron texted them, telling them to meet him at Andre's loft.
"Gentlemen, the time has come to publish the base game on Steam, but before I do that, I want all three of you to play it once" said Aaron.
3 hours later, Harry, James and Mario sat in awe. The game was unapologetic in its violence and power fantasy elements. The artwork and music that they had worked on, brought the game to life in stunning detail. Even without the BDSM aspects, the game had beautiful art, addictive gameplay, and a gripping, violent story.
"Aaron, this game is awesome!" whispered Harry in awe."Even without the smut, it gave me the chills" said James.
"I don't normally play Visual Novels, but this was so good. I couldn't stop" said Mario.
Aaron nodded somberly. "I am gratified that you believe this game is worth playing. Let's see what the wider internet thinks" he said and hit the publish button.
"Well let's celebrate!" shouted James, and they quickly ordered dinner and cheered with soda.
---
"Hey Daphne! You've got to check this out!" said Richard excitedly, showing her his laptop screen.
Daphne looked at the screen, mildly interested. "That looks quite interesting, Richard." she said, boredom evident in her voice.
"Interesting is an understatement! This game is amazing! The art is beautiful, the music is great and the story is so dark and twisted! Oh! I've finished it" said Richard torn between satisfaction and longing for more.
Daphne's eyes widened in shock as she saw the end credits roll.
"Richard! Pause it!" she shouted, her heart racing.
Richard quickly paused the game and looked at her in confusion.
"What's wrong Daphne?" he asked, seeing her go pale and tremble.
Frozen on the screen was a name that Daphne had never expected to see again.
A vein throbbed in Richard's forehead as Daphne fumbled and pulled off her engagement ring.
"Richard, I need to talk to you about something" she said, her voice trembling.
Richard's anger subsided. "What is it Daphne? You look like you've seen a ghost." he said, his voice laced with concern.
"That name. Aaron Zakhrov. He is a ghost from my past." said Daphne. She placed the ring in Richard's hand and closed his fingers around it.
"Richard, I need to tell you the truth. Before I came to England, my name was Daisy Eddington. I was Aaron's classmate and girlfriend. My parents were able to escape the clutches of a Senator Clarke. Everything I am today, I owe to him. He saved my life." she said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Richard pulled her into a gentle embrace. "Daphne, I don't care about your past. I love you for who you are now. You are my everything." he said softly.
"Please Richard, you need to know this." she said, her voice trembling.
"Alright Daphne. I will listen" said Richard, his voice gentle and reassuring.
Daphne took a deep breath and began to tell Richard everything. She told him about her life in St. Ignatius Academy, her friendship with Aaron, and how he had saved her from the bullying and harassment of Emily Clarke. She told him about her family's escape from the clutches of Senator Clarke, and how they had to leave everything behind to start a new life in England.
Richard listened intently, his heart aching for Daphne as she recounted her painful past. He could see the pain in her eyes and the tears streaming down her cheeks.
He was silent for a minute as he fought down the surge of jealousy, and finally asked: "Aaron would be 15, now that you are 19. Would you like to wait for him Daphne? Or should I say Daisy?"
Daphne shook her head and dried her tears.
"No, Master Richard. Aaron may have been my first love, and I own him a great deal. But I am now Daphne Devereux. I am yours. Mind, body and soul." she said, gently kissing the fist that held her engagement ring.
Richard smiled and kissed her forehead. "Thank you for being honest with me, Daphne. I love you even more now that I know the truth." he said, his voice warm and loving, before his expression turned sly.
"And I think I know just how we can repay Aaron for all that he has done for you." he said, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
Daphne's heart raced as she looked at Richard.
"What do you mean Richard?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Richard slipped the engagement ring back onto Daphne's finger and smiled wickedly.
"Well, I do some criminal profiling work for Interpol, so I know that they have been investigating Sarah Clarke for a while now. With your testimony, we can finally bring her to justice. And as for Aaron's game. My new adult video game streaming platform would be the perfect place to make it shine. It has just the right amount of suggestive content and dark violence to resonate with my target audience." he said.
Daphne knelt before him, fresh tears of gratitude streaming down her cheeks.
"Richard, I don't know how to thank you. You are so good to me. I love you so much." she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
Richard smiled and gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.
"Sarah Clarke hurt what is mine. And Aaron Zakhrov protected what is mine. I crush my enemies and reward my friends." he growled, deep into his "Master" persona.
"Give me a few minutes to slip into something more comfortable, Master Richard" said Daphne, shuddering at his tone.
Richard grinned and nodded, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
Daphne quickly slipped into her walk-in closet, and willed her pounding heart to calm down.
It had been nearly two years since she had arrived in England, and her family had started a new life. She was known as Daisy Eddington, but now she was Daphne Devereux, an 19-year-old honor student at Oxford University, and the submissive and fiancé of Richard Schofield, the young master and owner of a successful chain of BDSM clubs in the UK and Europe, as well as a rapidly growing adult video game streaming platform.
"You saved my life Aaron. I will never forget you. I will always love you. But I cannot be with you. I have to move on" she thought as she slipped into a black leather corset and matching skirt, and pulled on a pair of thigh-high black leather boots. She then carefully applied her makeup, and fastened a black leather collar around her neck, and clipped a leash to it.
She carefully placed the leash in her mouth, got on her knees and crawled out of the closet, her heart racing with excitement, for the things that Master Richard would do to her.
-----
Aaron awoke to several messages from his bank.
"What the hell?!" he yelled unable to contain himself.
Master of Arcadia had gone viral. Despite releasing only the base game, with the artwork still incomplete for the BDSM expansion DLC, the game had already racked up over 2,000,000 sales, earning a massive 40,000,000 dollars.With a deep breath and massive effort, he contained the mix of excitement and suspicion, and calmly knocked on Andre's bedroom door.
"Hey Aaron what's up?" asked Andre sleepily opening the door.
"Master of Arcadia just grossed 40,000,000" said Aaron calmly.
"What the hell? We didn't even market it!" yelled Andre.
Aaron's phone buzzed with a group call from Harry, James and Mario.
"We went viral." he said answering the call.
"We did more than that! It's all over YouTube and mainstream gaming outlets!" said Harry excitedly.
"It's not all good press though, lots of them are slamming the art saying it's misogynistic." grumbled James.
"That's SJW snowflakes for you. Pay them no attention." said Mario.
"Yes well, let's spend the semester break getting the BDSM expansion done." said Aaron and the others nodded emphatically.
----
"How are we going to distribute the expansion?" asked Harry as they worked on the artwork one day.
Using their new-found cash, he, James and Mario had splurged on new digital drawing tablets, music workstation equipment and more powerful laptops to create even better art and music, and they were quickly improving their original designs and creating the more complex and higher quality animations, music and sound effects required for the BDSM scenes.
"I have been working on a new company website, we will host the expansion there, and include a link to the site in the game itself" said Aaron already deep in the code for the new update.
----
The semester break passed quickly, and a week before classes were to commence, the update was ready. Aaron rented a warehouse on the outskirts of the city and installed a server rack with redundant power and internet backups to serve the game updates.
To cover their bases, Aaron updated the base game with clear warnings about buying the expansion, emphasizing that the game can still be enjoyed in its current form and that the expansion includes elements that audiences find offensive. He also purposely set a high 100 dollar price on the expansion to deter potential bad customers.
If the base game's launch was viral, it was nothing compared to the updated and expanded game. Revenue crossed the 500 million dollar mark. Game journalists, feminist influencers and various Gamer Gate proponents raised hell, calling the game an affront to women and society. Yet sales through both Steam and Sirius Software's servers remained strong.
"Damn. I'm sure glad you told us to not promote the game using our accounts, we would have been doxxed like hell." commented Harry, awe and respect for Aaron's foresight evident in his voice.
"Once bitten twice shy." said Aaron as he scrolled through article after article calling Master of Arcadia a rape simulator.
Andre entered the loft with a Japanese man in tow. "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Kazuya Honda. He represents SEGA and wishes to negotiate an investment and a localization deal with you." said Andre, introducing the man who bowed politely.
"Hello Mr. Zakhrov I have heard that you are the mastermind behind this game" said Mr. Honda with a heavy Japanese accent.
Aaron nodded. "I thank you for your interest Mr. Honda, but we are still students. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I wish to finish my education. I cannot commit to a sequel or a contract for any other games at this time." he said.
"I understand Mr. Zakhrov, and we are not looking for an obligation at this time. We wish to acquire the rights to publish and localize your game for the Japanese market." replied Kazuya.
Aaron thought for a moment.
"Very well, SEGA will have exclusive publishing and localization rights to _Master of Arcadia_ and any other future projects Sirius Software develops for the Japanese market. However, we retain all source code and intellectual property rights. SEGA will also manufacture and sell physical media for our games in both the Japanese and International markets. Does that sound good?" he asked.
Kazuya's eyes widened at the mention of physical media. This kid was a kindred spirit! He felt that digital distribution platforms carried too much risk for games and other content to be censored and taken down.
"That sounds excellent! Mr. Esposito and I will handle the paperwork." he said shaking Aaron's hand.
----
"What the hell do you call this?" demanded Sarah Clarke slamming a tablet showing screenshots of Master of Arcadia in front of Ivan in the staff room at MIT.
Ivan stared coldly back at her.
"None of my business. Aaron Zakhrov has been legally emancipated. I have no responsibilities over what he does." he said calmly.
"Do you have any idea of what I can do to you?" hissed Sarah. Her attempts to pull Master of Arcadia from Steam and shut down Sirius Software's servers had been futile. The base game which was available on Steam, did not violate any terms of service, and the expansion was not on any cloud hosting service making it impossible to shut down using her influence. She had launched a senate inquiry into Sirius Software, using Emily to accuse Aaron of statutory rape and Sirius Software of unethical business practices, but the process was moving too slowly for her liking.
"What? Are you going to whip me half to death like you did Michael Eddington? Go ahead! I daresay I deserve it for abandoning my precious son when he needed me the most." said Ivan bitterly. He had come to deeply regret his decision to support Annette, who had become even more extreme in her ideology and had all but alienated him from Mikaela, his daughter.
Sarah raised her hand to strike him, but it was caught by a large, hulking man in a black suit.
"Sarah Clarke. I am inspector Duncan from Interpol. You are under arrest for human trafficking." he said in a British accent, twisting her arms behind her and into handcuffs.
----
"Talk about poetic justice!" chuckled Andre putting down the newspaper. The headline was that Senator Clarke had been arrested by Interpol for running a massive human trafficking ring in Europe and Africa. He looked at Aaron sadly. "Would you like to reconnect with your parents? Now that Sarah Clarke has been arrested, there is no further need for estrangement" he said.
Aaron shook his head. "Ivan and Annette seem happy with their daughter. I will not disrupt their happiness" he said coldly.
Andre sadly shook his head. It appeared that Aaron's heart had frozen solid where his parents were concerned.