And I want answers to what might be behind all these doors

Sylvia led Nick and the girls down the beach, towards the towering hotel up the path. As she did, some girls took the opportunity to strike up conversations with each other. Holly was one of those girls, and she walked over to Mary to see how she was holding together.

“Are you okay?” Holly asked her friend.

Mary sniffled and nodded. Holly could see she was trying to put on a brave face. She placed a comforting hand on her arm and gave her a brief hug to show her support.

“I wouldn't worry too much,” she said. “Kim seems like a nice girl.”

Unlike Dakota... Holly couldn't get a read on that one at all.

“B-But… what if I lose a challenge?” Mary sobbed. “I don’t want another transformation!” She placed her hand over her belly, remembering that burning sensation she’d felt earlier from Sylvia’s demonstration. So pleasurable in a way that just had to be an affront to the lord, it was like the devil himself was stimulating her lady parts and urging her to do sinful acts. She couldn’t take more of that.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine, it’s going to be fine!” Holly knew her words were a hollow comfort, but she knew Mary. God was her rock, and if her faith broke, then the rest of her was soon to follow; and Sylvia’s black magic or whatever it was had really been doing a number on her. “Listen, just think of this like… a trial! That’s right. A trial. God’s putting you through a test right now, to see if you’re devout enough to avoid the temptation placed in front of you.”

Mary sniffled, brightening up a little with hope. “…Like Job?”

“Uh… sure! Why not,” Holly said, not having a clue who that was. “You just have to be strong and not give in, right?”

“Right, that’s right,” Mary nodded, working herself up little by little. “I just have to resist! My faith in God’s love will keep me right.”

“That’s the spirit!” Holly grinned, gently punching her friend in the arm.

Then another thought crossed Mary's mind and made her turn pale. “B-But… what if… what if Nick forces himself on me?” She hissed, glancing fearfully at him. “He’s so strong, what if he… what he tries to despoil my purity?!”

That was such a laughable statement Holly could barely keep a straight face. “Nick? **** himself on someone? Come on. He wouldn’t do that.”

Mary stared at Holly in confusion. “B-But he’s a sinner,” she reminded her friend. “That’s what they do, they’re filled with cruel lusts and seek to deflower innocent maidens like us and make us bear their seed. You said it yourself that’s what he was after! To have improper sexual relations with us!” She said that last part as a whisper, it was too improper to speak in her normal voice.

“…Okay, yeah, but he’s not going to **** anybody,” Holly assured her. “Nick’s a jerk, that’s for sure. But he’s not a criminal. He's no ****, it's not in him. I promise, if you tell him 'no', or if he knows you don't want it, then he won't lay a finger on you. And if he does, leave it to me. I’ll take care of him.”

She punched her fist. Her bravado wasn’t exactly reassuring considering that Mary was a good three inches taller than her. But still, just knowing that her friend had her back was reassuring.

“I didn’t think you of all people would be defending Nick,” Mary had to laugh. “Considering all the stuff you’ve said about him.”

“I just told the truth,” Holly huffed, crossing her arms. “But you know me, I don't make up lies about people, even if I hate them. Unlike that guy, making up lies about me.”

Then she sighed.

“I’m really screwed, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Mary asked, feeling a little uncomfortable about Holly's vulgar language but not having the courage to call out her only friend.

“You saw my popularity,” Holly groaned. “The audience hates me. I’m going to be the first girl eliminated for sure. And I know what they want me to do, too, and that’s for me get down on knees and apologize to Nick by becoming his little sex doll, but I won’t. I refuse!”

He wouldn’t want someone like me anyway…

Holly shook those thoughts away and felt a shiver run down her spine.

“The audience didn’t like me very much either,” Mary glumly agreed. “But it’s fine. We just have to believe in ourselves and believe in the lord’s grace, and he will provide!”

Well, hopefully he would drop a bunch of Victory Points in their laps. But until that happened, Holly wasn’t holding her breath.

She let out another sigh. “...I’m going to have to do something I don’t want to do, won’t I?”

But it’s the right thing to do, she reminded herself. So she swallowed down the bile in her throat and walked over to Nick.

“Hey.”

He flinched at the sound of her voice, nearly tripping over his feet.

“H-Holly, um…”

“I come in peace,” Holly said, holding up her hands.

“…Oh. So what do you want?” He asked, eyeing her suspiciously. He doubted any reason she had to talk to him would be good.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I… wanted to apologize.” Spitting those words out felt like shards of glass in her mouth, but she owed him an apology.

“Oh?” Nick scowled. “An apology for what? Talking about me behind my back, making up stories to get all our friends to hate me?”

“No, and I didn’t make anything up,” Holly snapped. “I just told my side of things. Which is exactly what you were doing, too, if I remember correctly!”

Calm down. Calm down. You came to apologize to him, not to pick a fight!

“Look, can we just… not talk about this right now? Please?” Holly pleaded, looking around at the others. Kim and Carly were already watching curiously while Mary’s face betrayed how concerned she was.

“We could have talked about it five years ago, but you said you didn’t want to talk to me, remember?” Nick reminded her.

“You were the one who didn’t want to talk to me first!” Holly said. DAMN IT, STOP! JUST STOP!

She couldn’t help herself, her mouth just kept digging her grave deeper. Nick was a sensitive subject for her.

“Look, I’m just trying to say I’m sorry!” She shouted.

Nick was taken aback. He looked at Holly like she’d just offered to cut her own stomach open.

“…Really? You’re apologizing to me?” Nick asked. “This isn’t some trick? You’re not setting me up for something?”

“No!” Holly stomped her foot in the sand. “I’m sorry, I… I shouldn’t have said that stuff I said. Before. Accusing you of being the one who did all this, bringing us here. I just… I messed up, okay? I let my feelings get in the way of my objectivity, but I know you’re not the kind of guy who’d do something like this. So I’m sorry for treating you like you were.”

If Holly wrote an autobiography, it would be titled "Said Something Stupid in the Heat of the Moment and Fucked It All Up". This was just the latest in a long life of making that same mistake.

Nick sighed. He couldn’t believe it, but hearing Holly apologize like that actually felt good. This had been the first real conversation they’d had in forever, he’d almost forgotten it was possible for her to be reasonable after the messy way they ended things.

“I’m sorry too,” Nick said. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t talked about you in my therapy sessions with Sylvia, you never would have been brought here.”

Holly decided that she was going to let that one go. While she definitely hated people talking about her behind her back, it was kind of hard to hold it against him when it was an actual therapist. Even if the therapist happened to be a demented witch who **** them.

“So that’s true, then? You were really seeing a therapist?” She asked, her face twisting with concern.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, turning away from her. “You don’t need to pretend like you care, either.”

Holly actually being concerned for his wellbeing? Ridiculous. If she cared that much about his mental health, why did she screw him over so badly with her lies?

Meanwhile, Holly clenched her fists and suppressed a scream. Calm down. The situation is just really tense. Don't escalate. You said what you needed to say, leave it at that.

This. This was why no contact. Because they couldn’t not be fighting.

Besides, Nick had someone else he wanted to talk to more at the moment. Two someones, in fact. But one of them was a completely impenetrable wall, so he stuck with the other.

“Has she said anything to you yet?” He asked Gina, walking up beside her.

Gina bit her lip and shook her head. Dakota was walking in front of them at the head of the pack, following Sylvia like a woman possessed.

“I tried, but she just ignored me. You don’t think she’s still upset, do you?”

“About the time we kissed? Or about drowning?” Nick had no idea he still had that much bitterness inside him. Holly really brought out the worst in his mood. He shook his head. “Sorry, that was out of line.”

“Nah, fuck that shit, you think I give a damn?” Gina snorted. “No, what I mean is like… this must be some pretty heavy shit to take in, you know? Coming back and all. So I gotta wonder how she’s dealing.”

Nick glanced at Gina. He could see she was looking a little twitchy.

“…How are you dealing?” He asked. He hadn't seen Gina in 15 years, and the state she was in now... even prettied up by her transformation, it was clear she wasn't doing hot.

“I mean, in your present condition-“

“And here we are!”

Sylvia’s voice broke through the conversation and Nick realized they had arrived. The massive hotel towered over the crowd, illuminated by the setting sun. With such faint light the shadows seemed to cling to the imposing structure, casting it in darkness. It served as an ominous warning of what lay within.

“Welcome… to the Harem Hotel,” Sylvia said with a bow, and the doors all swung open at once.

COLOR. That was the first thing that stood out to the contestants when they entered the lobby. Everywhere they looked they could see swirls of color. But it wasn’t due to the décor, no, the hotel lobby looked shockingly normal, like a regular hotel.

No, the burst color was due to the staff.

“Welcome!” A dozen small voices cried in unison.

This hotel wasn’t staffed by people. At least, not people in the human sense. Several women hung in the air around Sylvia, floating airborne on gossamer wings of light. They were clad in diaphanous dresses colored in pastel. Reds, greens, blues, yellows, each woman seemed bathed in a different color, from the hem of their dress to the color of their hair. They fluttered around the host and greeted their new guests with bright smiles and welcoming cheers.

Oh, and they were only about the size of a hand.

“Faeries!” Dakota gasped.

“Whoa, they’re so tiny!” Holly said in amazement. She’d been compared to a pixie many times for her cherubic features, but now that she’d seen a real one in person, there was no comparison.

Mary trembled. Seeing such fantastical creatures had shaken her. But she reminded herself that just because faeries were real did not make them evil creatures, and shakily returned their smiles.

“Yes! These cuties make up the staff for this particular hotel branch,” Sylvia explained. “They’re native to this island, and help out around the place in exchange for rewards from the producers.”

“So these really are faeries then?” Carly asked, reaching out curiously to touch one. The pixie batted her eyelashes and landed gently in Carly’s hand, giggling.

“Yep,” Sylvia nodded. “My predecessor built this island out of scratch to be her grounds for hosting competitions, and she wanted something a little cuter than old men or gremlins. And when she passed the position onto me, I inherited them along with the title of host!”

“Of course, our old mistress was better,” one of the faeries whispered to Dakota, who laughed along. It was the happiest Nick had ever seen her since she came back. Finally something had brightened her cold exterior.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, she’s gone and never coming back! Moved on to bigger and better things! None of that matters now, this is MY season, you hear me?!”

Her voice cracked just enough to make that claim sound pretty insecure, which Nick picked up on. He didn’t say anything though, wondering if there was some way he could use that info in the future.

“Anyway, the staff here will answer to your every need. Don’t let their size fool you, you’ll find that thanks to their magic they can accomplish a great many tasks,” Sylvia said. “In the meantime, we must get you girls to your rooms to unwind. Then, we have the great banquet dinner to welcome you all!”

“Yes, so much fun!” One of the faeries buzzed. “We’ve been cooking for hours in preparation!”

Sylvia licked her lips. “Ah, the welcome banquet is such a mood… I’ve dreamed of this day…” She was actually starting to drool. Then she gasped, realizing they were still on the air, and sobered up. “Anyway, I think it’s important that we move this along. So Nick, if you would?”

“Hmm?” Nick turned to Sylvia in confusion, only to see the hook of her cane approaching his face. He felt it touch against his forehead and then he was gone.

“Nick!” Holly gasped in horror.

“What did you do to him?!” Dani demanded, nearly tackling Sylvia before remembering that didn’t work last time either.

“He’s fine, don’t worry, we have strict rules against bringing harm to the master,” Sylvia assured the girls. “I just sent him up to his room so he can unwind a little bit. He’s had such a long day, you must realize.”

They all had. But whatever mental burdens the girls were dealing with, the pressure Nick was under due to blaming himself for this whole mess was incomparable.

“Can we please… go to the rooms already?” Mary asked weakly. She glanced at Dakota. The sooner she was away from the naked woman, the better it would be for all of them. She just needed somewhere safe to decompress from everything she'd been through today.

“…Of course!” Sylvia smiled, clapping her hands. She tapped her cane on the ground and suddenly the lobby was gone, and in its place, they were in a large room with a single square column in the center. The room was colored such a bright gold it was blinding; even the carpet was golden.

Is that… an elevator? Dawn wondered. She walked over to get a closer look. Yes, it certainly was. An elevator built into the middle of the room, with four doors, one on each side.

“That is the master’s elevator,” Sylvia explained. “Starting tomorrow, it will be expected that every night one of you girls will be taking that elevator up to meet the master.”

She stared at Gina when she said this, and the punk-turned-princess tensed up.

“Now, as you can see, for the rest of you, there are four more rooms,” Sylvia said, swinging her cane out in an arc. On each wall stood a single door, each colored a different color, black, blue, red, and white.

“Hey, uh… if those are our rooms, how do we get down from here?” Kim asked, looking around as they headed for the red door first. Besides the elevator, those doors were the only things present in the room.

“Each of your rooms comes with a private elevator that will take you to whichever part of the hotel you wish,” Sylvia smiled. “It uses the same transportation magic as I used to bring you girls here.”

Mary turned pale. So to leave her room she’d have to rely on black magic?

Dawn was also not thrilled. She still hadn’t fully accepted the whole “magic is real” thing. But the itch of her ears and the twitching tail sticking out of her shirt made a compelling case.

“First, we have the Red Room of the Southern Bird,” Sylvia declared, swinging the door open. Everyone’s eyes were bathed in red. Everywhere they looked was covered in the color. Red satin on the curtains, red carpet on the floor, the tables and chairs were all made of bright red wood, even the walls themselves were red. And the brightest and most imposing red of all was the massive bed, large enough to fit two people easily. Its cover and sheets were, of course, the same red satin as the rest of the room’s décor, and looming over the mattress was a headboard that had been ornately carved into the shape of a massive phoenix with burning feathers, spreading its wings open wide.

“Whoa, this place looks amazing!” Carly exclaimed, looking around the room in wonder. “Can you imagine how much it would cost to spend the night in a room like this?” She made good money and even she couldn’t imagine how many shoots she’d have to do to afford this.

“It’s… really something,” Dawn nodded, biting her lip. Even with her six figure income she’d have a hard time justifying staying here on a vacation.

“The Red Room, as you might expect, is the room we’ve chosen for our exuberant Team Passion,” Sylvia said, turning to Holly and Dakota.

Holly’s jaw dropped. This whole room was for the two of them?

“If you’ll check your closets, you’ll see that we brought you your clothes. And I will have a welcome basket delivered up shortly,” Sylvia smiled. Holly ran to the closet and was stunned. The inside of her own closet back home had been replicated perfectly. She rubbed her eyes and squinted. Yep, a perfect copy, right down to the dent in the wall from where she’d bumped her foot last spring.

She turned pale. Wait, then that means…

Her eyes landed on a lockbox on the floor. No…!

Holly glanced over her shoulder to see Sylvia standing at the door with a knowing smile on her lips. It was enough to shake her to her core.

“Dinner will be in one hour,” Sylvia chirped. “At the dining hall. Don’t be late!”

And with that, she left the two to settle down in their room.

“The White Room of the Western Tiger is next,” Sylvia said, moving to the next room in clockwise order. Like before, the amount of pure color present was blinding. Everywhere you looked there was white. White carpeting on the floor, white curtains on the windows, a white bedspread on the massive bed, even the walls were so white it was difficult to tell where the corners of the room were. And in the center of the room was a massive animal rug of a snarling white tiger that, if it were alive, would be around the size of a car.

“Now this room will belong to our adorable little Team Virgin,” Sylvia smirked, glancing at Mary and Kim. “It makes sense that our two most pristine girls will be staying in such pure white surroundings.”

She licked her lips. “Please be careful with the sheets by the way, wouldn’t want you to get your blood on them when your master plucks those cherries for himself."

Kim flushed red and pushed her hands down over her skirt, while Mary turned so pale she was practically as white as the bedspread.

“You’ll be getting your gift basket soon, and dinner’s in an hour!” Sylvia chirped, slamming the door shut on the two embarrassed virgins. “Now, to the next room, the Black Room of the Northern Tortoise!”

If the brightness of the previous rooms had been overwhelming, this one had a much more mellow feel. The floor was covered in shiny black tile with flecks of white all through it and the walls were a matching shade of ebony, giving off a feeling like you were standing under the night sky. Hanging menacingly over the dark bed was a massive tortoise shell, reflecting the dim glow of the light with an ominous atmosphere.

“Because of the dark aesthetic of the room, I thought it would be just perfect for you my girl,” Sylvia said to Gina. She turned to Dawn, “not to mention how it reflects the darkness of your heart.”

Dawn scowled. She was a nice person! She helped animals! Why was Sylvia talking down to her like that? Just because she was smart and wanted to win?!

And not to mention, I’m a virgin too! Her tail twitched in irritation. Is virginity only prized around here when the girls act pure and innocent?

“I’m just joking,” Sylvia laughed. “The real reason is because cute little kitties like you have eyes that can see in the dark, don’t they?”

Dawn blinked. DID she? As far as she knew she was still seeing fine with her glasses so her prescription hadn’t changed, but what if…

…Oh. Sylvia was just taunting her. Dawn levied a glare at the blonde, who left the two of them alone after giving her reminder about dinner and the gift basket.

“So, uh… hey,” Gina mumbled. It was a little uncomfortable being in such an awkward atmosphere, even for a burnout like her.

“And here we are, the final room,” Sylvia said, leading Dani and Carly to their residence for the next few weeks. “The Blue Room of the Eastern Dragon. I figured that you two would get a special appreciation for it, being the anime fans you are.”

She stepped inside and revealed the bright blue room. The cool atmosphere gave it a relaxing effect, and the entire thing had an Asian design, right down to the stylish weapons hanging from the walls. The far wall had been styled in a perfect replica of Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” and with the position of the bed, it seemed like the whole room was on the ocean.

“Holy shit! Dani, look at the floor!” Carly gasped.

The assessment wasn’t far off. Because upon closer glance, the tiles beneath their feet weren’t ordinary tiles. The floor was actually very thick glass laid over blue tiles, which was done for a very specific reason. A winding path of water flowed around the tiles in a wide inlaid channel, with a blue dragon eating its own tail at the bottom of the clear river.

“Holy shit,” Dani said, walking over it. “Don’t tell Nick about this room, he’ll freak out.” He’d always been afraid of running water. It was only today that she’d finally learned why.

“Sign me up for a lifetime in here,” Carly said, flopping on the royal blue bed cover. “A girl could get used to a harem if it came with a room like this!”

“I’m glad to see you’re so eager to embrace your new life!” Sylvia chirped. “Girls like you are always such fun! Now then, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now-“

“Yes, yes, welcome baskets, and dinner is in an hour,” Carly parroted it back. She waved at Sylvia. “Bye-bye.”

Sylvia puffed up her cheeks in a mock pout and flounced out the door, towards the elevator.

First a quick visit to the master… and then, dinner time!

She took one last look at the four closed doors, and smirked.

“I hope you all settle in nicely, my girls.” And with that, she was gone.