The Troll Whisperer

Sera Trevor

THE TROLL WHISPERER

Copyright Sera Trevor 2015

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication
without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

This book was produced in collaboration with the
Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s annual Don’t Read in the Closet story
event.

Cover design by Bree Archer

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

More by this author

About the author

CHAPTER ONE

Oscar reeked.

He never showered after he was done working
out. He liked walking home in a muscle shirt, gathering the
appreciative stares of the men and women who’d like to fuck him and
the straight dudes who wished they could get the kind of bod he was
rocking, only to recoil in disgust when the smell of Oscar finally
hit them. It was hilarious. The fact that it was a hot day only
made it better. He’d gained an additional layer of sweat; he was
practically shining with it now. Flies circled around him. It was
delightful.

He reached his apartment building, swinging
his gym bag over his shoulder as he walked past the leasing office.
He was just about to make his way upstairs when Aneisha, the
property manager, came tearing out of the office, jumping over
shrubbery to intercept him. He would have run, except his gym bag
was really heavy. Besides, Aneisha ran fast; it was particularly
impressive because she was wearing pumps and a pencil skirt. She
blocked his path, waving a paper in his face.

“Here it is!” she said, forcing it into his
hand. “You can’t say you didn’t get it.” She called out to an older
woman who was walking past. “Maria! Do you see me giving Oscar
Lozada, the current resident of apartment 424, this notice that he
has failed to keep up his rental property in clear violation of his
leasing agreement?”

“Yes, I do,” Maria said, shooting Oscar a
dirty look.

Aneisha turned back to him, her dark eyes
gleaming with triumph. “You have sixty days.”

“Or what?” Oscar asked.

“Or we start the eviction process.”

Oscar laughed. “Oh please. You have been
threatening me with that from the day you got this job. You don’t
have the balls.”

“Oh, I have balls. I have
plenty
of
balls. Upper management are the ones who lack balls in this
situation, but they’re behind me this time. I told them it should
be thirty days—”

“—but they have a hard enough time keeping
people in these shitty apartments as it is,” Oscar interrupted.
“And I pay my rent on time. Besides, the old property manager never
had a problem with me.”

“The old property manager was a worthless
sack of shit, which is why he got fired.” She flicked the paper. “I
mean it, Oscar. Clean it up, or pack your things.” She wrinkled her
nose. “And get your nasty ass in the shower.” She turned and
started back toward the leasing office.

“That’s not very professional, you know!”
Oscar shouted out to her. “You’ll never get promoted with that kind
of attitude!”

Without turning around, she flipped him the
bird.

Oscar crumpled the paper and threw it on the
ground. This whole eviction thing was annoying, but at the same
time, it was kind of funny seeing Aneisha so worked up. If he were
straight, he’d probably find her cute. He started back up the
stairs again. If she was going to throw such a fit about it, he
could clean it up just enough to get her off his back. It wasn’t
that bad.

He pushed open the door, which was met with
resistance because his pile of full garbage bags had fallen over.
He threw his gym bag over the mound; once his hands were free, he
grabbed two of the bags. He took them to the dumpster beside the
leasing office so that he could wave them in front of the window on
his way. Aneisha rolled her eyes. Oscar went back upstairs and
grabbed a couple more. There! He could clean up; he’d already
started. That only left six more bags. They were in the kitchen,
though, so he’d get to them later.

Oscar waded into the apartment, shutting the
door behind him. Even with the pile of garbage bags gone, there was
still garbage on the floor that had managed to leak out. Something
crunched under his foot. It was fine, though; he just wouldn’t take
off his shoes. He headed to the kitchen; the big protein shake he’d
had at the gym had filled him up mostly, but he was still a little
hungry. In the cupboard, he found a pack of ramen noodles and a bag
of potato chips. He looked around for a bowl he could nuke the
noodles in, eventually spotting one in the sink. After a brief
assessment, he decided he probably couldn’t extract it without
causing a dirty dish avalanche. He unwrapped the noodles and just
munched them as they were. With the noodles in his teeth and the
chips under his arm, he opened the fridge and grabbed a six-pack.
His phone buzzed; probably a notification from Grindr, but he
didn’t feel like going out. No, tonight it would be just him and
his computer.

He deposited the six-pack and the chips by
his mattress, which sat on the floor. Still holding the noodles in
his mouth, he pushed some dirty clothes onto the floor until he
found his laptop under the laundry heap. Once he had it, he removed
the noodles from his mouth with one hand and grabbed a beer with
the other. He laid back in the little blanket nest he’d made for
himself.

When he opened his browser to check his
email, he found a message from his friend Jeremy.

Check out this guy. Lololol what a fucking
weirdo.

Oscar clicked on the link. It brought him to
a YouTube video of a really cute guy in a nurse’s uniform. He was
looking straight at the camera, whispering about how he was going
to give the viewer a medical exam. So far, it didn’t seem weird. It
actually seemed kind of hot. The guy wasn’t ripped, but he wasn’t
doughy either, and definitely not fem. Still, there was this
sweetness about him. That didn’t normally do it for Oscar, but his
soft brown hair and puppy-dog brown eyes were just goddamn
adorable. His lips seemed so full and soft. He even had a little
scruff, which Oscar liked. Oh yeah, he would definitely let this
dude give him a medical exam. He stuck a hand in his pants in
anticipation.

But it did not go the way he expected. He
just went through a normal doctor’s exam, just as if Oscar had gone
in for a physical. He did it all very softly and crinkled a lot of
things. After the first five minutes, Oscar looked at the progress
bar; this thing went on for another twenty fucking minutes. He
skipped around to see if he ever took off his shirt or something,
but nope, just thirty minutes of asking about medical conditions
and pretending to take his blood pressure.

Jeremy was right. This guy was indeed a
weirdo. But it wasn’t a total waste of his time. He laced his
finger together and popped them. This guy was ripe for
trolling.

The guy’s user name was,
NoahASMR
. The
description of the video read:

Hi! My name is Noah. I have really enjoyed
watching other people’s ASMR videos, so I decided to make one of my
own. It’s a nurse role-play. I am new to the ASMR community (and to
the Internet in general!) so please go easy on me. :)

Oh man. That was a straight up invitation to
troll him. This guy needed Oscar to toughen him up for the wilds of
the Internet. Oscar googled ASMR— apparently it was this weird
thing where people got tingly from listening to quiet sounds. It
was emphasized several times that this was not a sexual sort of
tingling.

He logged on to one of his YouTube sock
puppet accounts,
up4it
.

hi, loved the video. ur rly cute. ;) I
couldnt hear u, tho. If u make another one, could u talk
louder?

Oscar browsed around the Internet and did
some casual trolling until he got a response from Noah. He fired up
his mommy sock puppet,
bettermommy
, and suggested on his
favorite parenting board that women who don’t breast-feed should be
jailed for child abuse. That escalated quickly. He stayed and
argued until everyone was whipped into a frothy frenzy. The
wonderful thing about the parenting board was no matter how extreme
he got, there was always at least a dozen other people who
completely agreed with
bettermommy
. She had gained kind of a
cult status as a mom who just told it like it was. With all the
agreement she got, it was hard to tell that Oscar was the troll. He
wondered how many of them were also trolling. Not many, he
expected.

From there, he went to a small conservative
Christian message board and spammed it with gifs of hardcore gay
fucking. He did it until someone finally banned him, which took an
amusingly long period of time. You’d think they’d be quicker on the
draw; he did this at least once a week. He used Tor, so they
couldn’t touch him unless they just stopped accepting new members,
but they wouldn’t do that. The word of Christ had to be spread. So
they rent their garments and gnashed their teeth, calling out for
their mod to save them. Someone actually suggested that it might be
the work of Satan himself. Oscar got a laugh out of that. What a
bunch of loons. But when you had an entire thread dedicated to the
homosexual agenda and their plans to convert children, that’s what
you got. Hell, he was sure some of them were masturbating while
they typed their outrage.
You’re welcome
, he thought.

When whoever was at the helm figured out how
to wield the banhammer, he headed over to Reddit and signed into
his religious sock,
faithsetsufree
. He got on r/Atheism and
offered to pray for their salvation. Man, they were easy— soon they
were all scrambling to prove to each other that they were unholier
than thou. He sprinkled in a few religious arguments— stuff that
had already been hacked to death, but they somehow felt compelled
to play out the same script every time. Some people called him a
troll, but that didn’t stop them from commenting. It never did.

He headed back to YouTube and was psyched to
see that Noah had replied.

Hi! I’m glad you liked my video, but I’m
afraid speaking louder would defeat the purpose. This video is
meant to invoke an ASMR response. ASMR is a physical reaction to
quiet sounds that invokes a sense of pleasure and relaxation for
some people. Speaking louder would not “trigger” that response.
:)

Well, Noah was certainly a well-spoken guy.
He decided to up the misspellings for maximum irritation.

Im defenitely feeling the pleasure. ;)
Srsly, tho, i cant here u. i like it when cute boyz get loud. ;) ;)
;)

Noah responded almost immediately.

I’m sorry, I think you’re confused. Speaking
softly is the point of this video. I cannot speak louder or else it
would not be an ASMR video. If you read the other comments, you
will understand that I am being complimented for my soft speaking
voice.

Oscar typed back:

Well, thats just there taste, mine is
diffrent. I want to kno what ur voice sounds like loud.

Noah responded:

It isn’t just a matter of taste. It is the
definition of ASMR. Here is a link to a website that can explain it
better.

He included a link to Wikipedia.

Oscar typed back:

Duh ino how to google

There was a long pause.

I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m the one who is
confused now. :) If you already have searched for the term, then
why are you asking me to be louder?

Oscar cackled to himself and took a large
swig of beer. He could just picture Noah sitting at his computer,
his brow growing more and more furrowed as he tried to puzzle out
what was happening.