[Start Here] - Learning the Ropes

Or so he thought. As soon as Trevor crossed the door's threshold a blinding white light washed out his vision. He slowly blinked tears from his eyes as he discovered that he was not in fact just outside of Riley's house. A strange and disorienting feeling set in as Trevor realized he couldn't quite tell how long it had taken him to get here. He'd just left from Riley's, hadn't he? Why did it feel like so much more time had passed?

Trevor began to look around and take in his surroundings. He was in a small room that was nonetheless astounding to behold. The floor was marble and the walls blindingly white. A fireplace sat in the wall to his left, with a mantle that featured intricate gold inlay; within the hearth a fire crackled with soft contentment.

In front of him was an arched window overlooking a courtyard. Ornate pillars supported an overhang which shaded the pathway around the courtyard's inner grass. A majestic fountain stood at it's center, complete with carved statues of men and women engaging one another sensually.

As Trevor turned around he noticed something else: he was not alone. Reclining comfortably in a padded chair made from dark wood was a stunning woman who evaluated him with an eager, uncomfortably knowing, gaze. Her immaculate peach skin practically glowed in the warm light of the fire. Her cheeks curved gently down to an elegant chin. Her eyes were the dark blue of an angry sea. Styled ringlets of onyx black hair curled gracefully down to her lower back, where they pooled in stark contrast to the vivid red of the chair's velvet upholstery. She was dressed in a simple gown of sky blue silk which somehow managed to be loose and flowing in some places while in others it hugged tightly to her curves, showing off her Venusian proportions.

"Hello," she said, in a twinkling voice. "I'm Violet. I'll be your host for the next few months."

Trevor took all this in and gave another appraising look around the room. The woman was at ease and there was nothing else to indicate danger, but something strange was clearly happening and he would be a fool to assume he was safe. Perhaps he was having a stroke. Perhaps he had died and this was what came next. Or, he thought, perhaps he had been **** and ****.

Several different questions rolled around on his tongue silently. Violet waited with patient demeanor and appraising eyes while he settled on the one he wanted to ask. "How," he finally said, "did I get here?"

"We brought you," she delivered the answer straight, but her sly smile gave away that she was just messing with him.

"How, and why?" Trevor had a thought. "My friends, the ones whose house I was at when you took me. Where are they? Are they safe?"

"Your friends are fine," she assured him. "Now, as to how you got here, we simply don't have the time to cover it. But explaining the why of it is exactly what I'm here for. Simply put, you are on a show. The audience, who is always watching, want to see how you and the contestants react to the upcoming...events."

Trevor stared at her blankly, but if what she said was a joke she didn't laugh. "We have a schedule to keep, and it doesn't allow for much time to prove myself to you." She waved her hand, and continued, "You will believe what I tell you here today."

And just like that, he did. He knew he was on a show, that he was even then being watched, somehow, by an unseen audience. Trevor chose to view the experience and it's implications as only disconcerting, in order to avoid a panic. He **** himself to go slowly. "You said 'the contestants', as if neither of us were part of that group. Am I not a contestant?"

"No," she replied. "And neither am I, of course. I'm the show's host, while you occupy a special place within the game. There are nine contestants, who you will meet shortly, each of whom will be a member of your harem. You, as the harem master, will not be competing."

Trevor blinked. "My...harem," he said flatly.

"Yes, precisely. They are bound to you, and you to them. Any attempt to forge a life away from this harem-relationship you now have with one another will be thwarted by fate itself."

For the second time in as many minutes Trevor was **** to squash a rising sense of panic at what she was implying, instead resorting to curiosity. "What does that even mean? Fate is real then? What is it?"

Violet looked amused. "Yes, we did pick a philosopher didn't we." She waved her hand dismissively. "Like I said, we don't have time to go over the how."

"Alright," Trevor said, "the 'why' then. I take it that watching us adjust to this new reality you're dictating is the point of the show. Where does competition factor in?"

"The show features five rounds of ten days each. On the first day of each round the contestants, that is the girls in your harem, will be issued a challenge. Doing well in the challenge, among other things, awards Victory Points.

"Then, after each contest, comes audience voting. There will be what is essentially a popularity contest; doing well will reward the contestants further. More importantly, for each contestant the audience will get to vote for a transformation they want her to undergo."

That was a lot to take in, and Trevor took his time. "Not to put myself down, but I can't imagine the girls will be pleased with this arrangement. I'm not very happy with it myself, and from what you've said so far it sounds like I have it much better than them. I'm not sexually beholden to a stranger." Trevor narrowed his gaze. "How do you plan on ensuring their cooperation? Or mine, for that matter."

"First off, I wouldn't quite say that they'll be sexually beholden to a stranger." She breezed right past Trevor's questioning look. "But, to answer your question, escape is impossible but you're all technically free to refuse to play. There are consequences to that though.

"The audience is unlikely to be happy, and will probably choose harsher transformations. In turn, the show runners are likely to give the girl harsher transformations for the audience to pick from.

"That's the stick, but there's also a carrot. At the end of the show, the girl with the most Victory Points will get to make a wish. Any wish. And we will grant it." She paused briefly, then smiled slyly. "Well, some terms and conditions apply."

Trevor nodded. "Play along, and your wildest dreams come true. Or, at the least, you could undo whatever transformations were **** on you along the way."

"Exactly," she said.

Trevor furrowed his brow. "What about me? If I'm not competing then none of that applies."

"In some sense, however you choose to behave counts as playing the game. But I have some experience with productions like this one, and I'm not that worried." Violet stopped talking and briefly stared off into the distance. "Well, it's about time to kick things off."

She stood up, unpinned a sheet of paper from the door, and handed it to him. "If you have any questions," she said, "all the rules are written down here. The other contestants have already been briefed. Let's not keep them waiting."

Violet opened the door then looked back. "Well?" she asked, "Aren't you coming?"

***

Trevor followed trepidatiously in Violet's flowing wake. He did his best to take in the surroundings. Any piece of information could be critical. Not to escape, of course. That was impossible. Violet had said so. But maybe the consequences of the game could be mitigated, or some disaster averted, if he had a strong grasp on what was happening.

That was easier said than done. The whole thing was absolute insanity. Violet casually defied everything he knew about the world. Which was terrifying. And fascinating. Trevor carefully stoked that ember of curiosity, feeding it his anxiety. Violet wouldn't explain how anything worked but maybe over the course of the show he could pry something out of her. Even a small kernel of knowledge could change the world back home.

Wherever that was.

Violet led them through tall corridors with gorgeous murals painted along the ceilings, most of which featured debauchery of one form or another. Marble columns soared up to support those risque scenes, framing windows that gazed out into cloistered gardens and pools.

At the end of the hallway stood a massive pair of door, easily twice as tall as Trevor, made from solid wood and banded with bronze. As the pair approached the doors opened before them and Trevor caught his breath as he got his first view of the outside.

They were now at the front of the building, which Trevor was beginning to think of as a palace, on the grounds of a grand covered plaza. The entire thing was built from solid marble. Two dozen columns, each carved into the shape of a naked woman with unique proportions and poses, soared up to support the roof two stories overhead.

An ornate chair, a throne really, was placed fifteen or so feet in front of the entryway with several steps leading up to it. In front of the throne was a shallow, circular depression, five feet across. Two rings of shallow steps led down to it. A little further out was a semicircle of nine podiums with the throne serving as their center. They were a mirror image of the depression, five feet across and circular but with two rings of steps leading up to them, not down.

Beyond the plaza, a flight of dozens of stairs descended down from the complex to the desert below. Dunes of sand extended in all directions, blazing in the sunlight. Nearby the ground was mostly flat, but the dunes grew steadily larger the farther away they got until in the far distance they rose like mountains.

Most breath-taking of all though was the oasis. A ribbon-shaped lake extended in front of them for what had to be a mile. At it's narrowest it was still a hundred meters across. The water captured the reflections of the dunes, sun, and palm trees like a crystal mirror. Dotted all along it's shore were buildings, some alone and some in clusters.

"This," Violet said, motioning towards the throne, "is where you'll sit."

"Right. Sure thing. Why not." Trevor sat down in the over-sized chair, unsure and settling in slowly. The throne was carved from the dark oak and was detailed with gold inlay that flowed in graceful swirls. Impossibly plush upholstery lined the inside of the throne. It may have been the most comfortable seat he had ever sat in. It seemed that here, even the mundane was incredible.

Violet stood at his right hand. She was tall for a woman, only an inch or two shorter than himself, but even sitting his throne was large enough that he looked down on her.

"Ladies and gentleman, perverts and scoundrels, voyeurs and fantaseers," Violet said, addressing the empty plaza as if it held a crowd, "welcome to this season of Harem Hotel!

"We have quite a show lined up for you. Nine women, each with their own charms and quirks, all of whom our harem master Trevor Kane will have complete access to. How will he use them! How will you change them! We all wait with baited breath to find out.

"The rules this season have changed slightly, though the format is essentially the same, so if you haven't already I urge you to read the synopsis you should have received with your purchase.

"But enough formalities. You've already seen a day in the life of the new harem master."

That was news to Trevor. He shivered involuntarily. So their power extended outside of this place. He should have been able to work that out. Of course it did, how else had they gotten a hold of him?

"It's time to meet the lovely ladies!" Violet continued. "I personally thought it would be fun to introduce them in a particular order, with the one's Trevor knows the least well coming first."

"I *know* them?" Trevor asked in shock.

"I did tell you," Violet said, turning her head up to him, "that they wouldn't be, how did you put it...sexually beholden to a stranger." She turned back to the empty plaza.

"First up," she said with a giggle, "we have a lady who really knows how Trevor likes his coffee."