It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down...

“What the hell?!” A young man with dusty blonde hair sat upon a throne set on a very familiar stage. He looked around in confusion at the empty beach chairs in front of him, scanning the shore with his eyes for any sign of life. And then his eyes landed on the man standing over him, cane in hand, face indecipherable, and he froze. “Who-?! Where-? Why-?!”

“All good questions,” the mysterious man said with a laugh, tapping his cane on the deck of the stage. “But I’m in no hurry to answer them. Before any of that, shall we get to the formalities? You are Jacob Evans, right? Jake?”

“I… y-yes, that’s my name, but…” Jake shook his head, feeling a throbbing headache start to come on. “Why am I here? Where’s Rebecca? We were just at the movies, and-”

“Oh, she’ll be coming around soon,” the man crooned, stepping closer. His cane made a menacing tapping sound with each step he took. “For now, allow me to introduce myself! My name is Mr. S, and I am the host of this little show.”

Jake mouthed the word first before repeating it in confusion, “Show? What… what do you mean… show?” He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, but made no move to stand up.

Mr. S narrowed his eyes, which lacked any distinguishing features that could be latched onto, such as shape, color, or size, and yet they were clearly eyes. “The greatest show around,” he said with a smirk. “Harem Hotel! That’s right, young man, you’ve been selected as the next master of the grand hit reality show, ‘Harem Hotel: Island Holiday Season’!”

He paused, and the hollow sound of artificial clapping filled the air. Jake looked around, his mouth flopping open and closed as he tried to identify the source of the sound, but saw nothing. It didn’t make any sense!

“B-but-”

“Shh, shh,” Mr. S said, pressing his finger onto Jake’s lips to shut him up. “We’ll cover all that shortly. I’m sure you must be very confused, so allow me to explain!”

Mary couldn’t believe what she was watching. Her body had moved automatically to sit on the couch, and now she was staring at the screen without blinking, trying to process.

“It’s… an old season?” She mumbled into the air, not even aware she was speaking aloud. “What… why is this here?”

She recognized the producer, this must have been back when he was a host. But why would Dakota have this tape hidden away in the depths of the hotel?

Wondering if the answer would be made clear, she leaned forward and continued to watch.

“Now that we’ve gone over the rules for our dear master, it’s time to bring on our contestants!” Mr. S said, waving his cane jovially.

“Wait!” Jake’s eyes widened. “You can’t, that’s not-!”

“To start, our master’s lovely girlfriend of three years! The most serious relationship he’s had with a woman!” Mr. S’s voice oozed with gleeful sarcasm. “Could it be true love? Let’s give her a hand, folks, our first contestant! Rebecca Johnson!”

With a wave of his cane, a young woman appeared, sitting in the first beach chair with a startled expression on her face. She was pretty, in a plain sort of way, with a slender, willowy frame, neat black hair, and delicate features. Her blue eyes were frantic with confusion and she looked at her boyfriend with trepidation and alarm.

“Jake?! What’s going on? What is this?” She cried. “I thought we were supposed to be watching a movie?!”

“It’s a complicated situation,” Mr. S informed her. “You and your boyfriend have been invited to take part in a wonderful and exciting reality show, called Harem Hotel! Isn’t that just phenomenal?”

“H-Harem?” The woman looked confused. “What… that… I don’t… …Jake, what is he talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, shaking his head. He looked weakly back at his girlfriend. “A-apparently, I… I was chosen for this weird show… they’re planning on making me date a bunch of girls at once? I don’t, I…”

Rebecca’s eyes widened and she looked at her boyfriend in horror. “But that… but why would they want that?”

She turned to Mr. S, angered. “He already has a girlfriend! Me!”

Mr. S looked at her like she was a pathetic loser. “Exactly. Just one girlfriend? Talk about boring. The audience is never going to go for that. Hence why we’ve decided that the best course of action is to give him his pick of girlfriends! That’s right, here on Harem Hotel, we exist to make the dreams of our master come true- whether he wants them to or not.”

Mr. S’s eyes twinkled with delight and Rebecca shivered. A look of terror crossed her face. “B-but… we’re in love…” she said quietly.

“I know, and isn’t that a wonderful thing?” Mr. S chortled. He let out a long sigh. “Ah, true love… nothing else like it. …Gets rather repetitive, though, don’t you think? Anyway, we’ve spent enough time on you. Time to meet our next contestant! This lovely lady grew up next door to Jake, and when they were young, they were thick as thieves. Of course, they drifted apart as they got older, but she’s always had a special place in his heart! Presenting, Jennifer Summers!”

With a wave of his cane, another woman appeared, sitting in the chair right beside Rebecca’s. The dark-haired girl recoiled in surprise when she saw the gorgeous blonde pop up beside her, and Jennifer herself also looked stunned and upset.

“What!? I don’t, I- …Wait, Jakey? Is that you?” She squinted up at the stage, recognizing the familiar face of her estranged childhood friend. “Oh my gosh! I haven’t seen you in- …What, six years now?”

“Jen…” Jake’s voice wasn’t quite working properly. He was too stunned by his childhood friend’s sudden appearance. “H-hey…”

“What am I doing here?” Jennifer’s happy expression quickly turned sour as she looked around the beach. The picturesque scenery wasn’t maintaining her pleasant mood. “I was at home talking with my roommate, and now here I am, on some beach in the middle of nowhere with my old friend? And…”

She turned to Rebecca and looked at her for the first time. “…Sorry, who are you again?”

Rebecca sank into her seat, intimidated slightly by the gorgeous blonde. “I-I’m Rebecca,” she mumbled out. “Rebecca Johnson… I’m… Jake’s girlfriend…”

Jennifer blinked, processing that for a second. “Oh. I see, well, nice to meet you, Becky!” She introduced herself with a handshake. Rebecca hesitated to take it.

“It’s, um, Rebecca…”

“Right, sorry.”

Mr. S clapped his hands together. “How sweet! We’re all friends now. Anyway, let’s move on, we have more girls to meet…”

“More girls?!” Rebecca squeaked, jumping in her seat.

“Of course Jake here is getting a full-course harem, with eight lovely ladies, you two included. It’s the least he deserves, don’t you agree?” Mr. S asked with a smirk.

Rebecca paled. “I… that’s, um…”

“I don’t want a harem!” Jake protested from his throne. “I’m in love with Rebecca! You can’t just bring us here and make us play your stupid games! …At least send Jen back! She doesn’t even want to be here, we’re just old friends!”

Mr. S laughed. “Oh come now, Jakey, you know that’s not how this works. I just told you, didn’t I? You’ll be meeting eight girls. They’ll be joining your harem. All of them will be trying to appeal to you, so they can earn those sweet, sweet Victory Points. And if anybody makes it to 100 by the end of the season, well, congratulations! They’ll be made into a perfect match for you! …Of course, if they don’t, well… not so good. But no need to worry about that.”

“But I don’t want that!” Jake protested. “I just want-”

“Rebecca, I know, you’ve said it a thousand times already,” Mr. S scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Your first girlfriend, your true love, blah blah blah. …We’ll see. Don’t worry, Jake, this season was specially-made, just for you. Normally, all the girls in your harem will be bound to you no matter what, so long as they maintain a positive amount of Victory Points. But in this season, we’re doing something a little more… dramatic. When she show comes to an end, you’ll be allowed to cultivate your harem as you see fit! Any girls who don’t make the cut, well, you’re free to sever all ties with them. You won’t have any connection at all, and they won’t be part of your harem.”

Rebecca’s eyes widened.

Jake looked at Mr. S uncertainly, not sure if he could trust the host’s words. “So… does that mean I could just choose Rebecca and have a harem of one, then?”

Rebecca nodded her head vigorously, heart pounding hopefully in her chest. Beside her, Jennifer remained silent.

“You could,” Mr. S conceded. “If that’s what you want. But- this show is going until the end. If, by the time it concludes, you still feel like Rebecca here is your one and only, well, more power to you! But I have a feeling that you’ll come around. Remember what I said, about the transformations? Well, those are happening either way. And just because a girl is no longer a part of your harem, that doesn’t mean she’ll go back to normal.”

“Transformations!?” Jennifer recoiled in shock. “What’s this about transformations!?” It was the first she’d heard of it.

Mr. S turned his gleeful smile towards her. “Oh, yes, all manner of transformations! Physical changes, mental ones, and all of them sexy- it all depends on what the audience votes for! You’ll get one a round. Make the most of them and try to seduce our besotted master to look your way! …If you wish to, of course.”

Rebecca turned pale. She looked hesitantly at Jennifer, and saw the wheels turning in the other woman’s eyes. So this really was a competition… and she would have to compete with a beauty like this? Who had been such an important part of her boyfriend’s life for so long? Rebecca remembered when they had started dating, and Jake had told her that he’d gotten a late start since he’d spent so much of his childhood infatuated with his childhood friend, who had never returned his feelings. The devastation he’d felt was why it took so long to try again, and why he hadn’t gotten his first girlfriend until his twenties.

Rebecca had to compete with that… …And six other women too?!

Her heart pounded with anxiety. She could do this. She just had to trust Jake. All the times he said he loved her… they were real. She knew it!

Mary felt sick to her stomach. The premise of this show… being able to just kick any woman you wanted out of the harem at the end of the season… it was so twisted. This was so much worse, so much more ruthless than Sylvia, or even Dakota had been.

But she couldn’t stop watching.

“What!?” Rebecca couldn’t believe the transformation she’d been given by the audience. “Why… why did they choose that one!?”

She looked down at her frumpy clothes, and at the other transformations she could have gotten. The audience could have given her an alluring and seductive figure, but they’d chosen to go a more natural, wholesome route. Physically, anyway. Normally, Rebecca would have been relieved by that. The last thing she wanted was some physical transformation to turn her into a sex doll, or a mental transformation that turned her into a bimbo.

But what the audience had given her instead…

• Happy Boy, Girl Feels Joy: Rebecca is so devoted to her beloved Jake, her very first boyfriend. She would do anything to make him happy! His happiness is her happiness- quite literally! Now, Rebecca will find that her deepest goal is doing whatever she can to please her boyfriend and make him happy, as a good girlfriend should! (Devotion)

“I wonder,” Mr. S mused. “Perhaps they felt like you were being too overbearing last round, trying to keep Jake’s eye from wandering towards other girls? This is Harem Hotel, after all. If he’s caught up in you, he’ll be closing himself off from potentially finding happiness with the other women in his harem! And that would be just tragic. So apparently, the audience thinks it would be better for the both of you if you were now completely devoted to making your boyfriend happy as can be- even if that means letting him be with other women!”

“I…” Rebecca turned to Jake, trembling. He looked at her, stunned.

“…But he’s my boyfriend…” she mumbled out.

“Th-that’s right!” Jake nodded, only hesitating a second. “I’m happy with Rebecca, I don’t… I don’t need the other girls.”

Mr. S raised his eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“Jakey, calm down,” Jennifer said, walking up to him. Her breasts were almost double their original size thanks to the last few rounds of generosity from the audience. She tucked a lock of flawless blonde hair behind her ear. “We all know you’re in love with Rebecca, but think about things from our perspective, too. We’re all trying to get to know you and do our best for you, but if you just focus on her, it isn’t really fair, is it?”

“Jen…” Jake didn’t know what to say to that.

“It’s for Rebecca’s own good, too,” another girl, Madison, pointed out. She worked across from Jake’s cubicle at his office, and often joked that she was his “Work Wife” with him. “She’s been plunging in the popularity polls, and why do you think that is? Because she keeps insisting that you stay monogamous, even though this show is called ‘Harem’ Hotel. Now, I know you don’t want to betray her, but think about what’s best for you both, alright?”

Jake averted his eyes. Thanks to Madison’s most recent transformation, she had been explaining this to him while showing him her boobs. The audience had decided that any time she gave advice now, it would be with her tits hanging out.

He didn’t know what to say. He just looked at Rebecca, then at Jen, then at Madison’s tits, then at the other girls. What was he supposed to do here?

“You slept with her.” Rebecca wasn’t even upset. She spoke with a resigned voice, looking defeated. The round had barely started, and now…

“Rebecca, I’m sorry,” Jake pleaded with her. “I… I had to, it’s for the show… look, Jen is my best friend, she understands what we have. This is just so she can get to 100 VP and make it to the end of the season without anything worse happening!”

Rebecca looked up at her boyfriend and wondered if he really believed that was true.

She smiled. “It’s okay,” she assured him, even though it wasn’t. “As long as you’re happy… that makes me happy.”

If only her transformation actually made her happy for him, instead of just compelling her to go along with it.

“Well, would you look at that?” Mr. S crowed. “Jennifer is at the top of the Popularity Poll again! You know what that means! She’ll get to spend the first night of the round with the master again! Lucky girl! And Rebecca, well… since you’re still at the bottom, you’ll get the last night with him. But that’s okay with you, right?”

Rebecca’s heart ached. She glanced at Jake, and tried not to notice how excited he was by the prospect. Jen had just gotten another transformation for her Sex Bomb path, which would double the pleasure of anyone who slept with her. Jake obviously couldn’t wait to try it out, judging by how he was mooning over her. Like a schoolboy in love. Looking at Jen the way he’d used to look at her.

“…Of course it’s okay,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. “Whatever makes him happy! That’s what being a good girlfriend is all about!”

“Glad to hear it!” Mr. S crowed. “Because your new transformation is quite a doozy.”

Rebecca bit her lip.

• Devoted to You: A good girlfriend should love her boyfriend more than anything. From now on, Jake will always be Rebecca’s number one priority. All of her love will be for him, with hardly any left for anyone else. Friends, family members, even pets, Rebecca’s love for them will all be turned towards her boyfriend instead! (Devotion)

They’d even taken away her ability to love. That was fine- Rebecca had grown up in foster care, so she’d never known her parents. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t love them. She didn’t have any friends, either- not after Mindy stabbed her in the back last round, sleeping with Jake after promising her for years that she didn’t see him that way.

So why did it matter if she wouldn’t be able to love anyone else but Jake? Jake was all Rebecca needed to be happy anyway…

Mary covered her mouth, horrified by the twisted transformation. She couldn’t believe it. “That poor girl…” she murmured.

“Where’s Mary?” Nick looked around, frowning. It had been a long time since she’d gone to the bathroom. “Is she okay?”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mr. S assured him. “No need to worry.”

Dakota frowned. Nick was right, Mary had been gone a long time. Using her powers, she took her attention away from the maze for a moment, and focused on tracking down the redhead.

She froze.

“No…” What little color there still was in Dakota’s face drained away. She slowly shook her head. “She couldn’t be… …No!”

With a furious stab of her cane into the ground, she vanished, startling Nick. “Dakota!?” He exclaimed, jumping out of his seat. “Where-!?”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Mr. S said, giving Nick an intimidating look. “Sit back down, there’s nothing you need to be concerned about.”

Nick doubted that. His heart pounded anxiously in his chest.

“What should I do?” Rebecca- or “Becky” as she was now being called- was a complete wreck. She looked up at Mr. S with a pathetic look of defeat in her eyes.

“I’m the host, my dear, I’m not allowed to show you any favor,” Mr. S crooned. “I have to remain neutral.”

“But I’m losing him!” Rebecca wailed. “He… he doesn’t even look at me anymore… he just cares about Jennifer, and Madison, and Mindy, and the rest of them! I… if I don’t do something…!”

“You’ll lose your position as girlfriend?” Mr. S smirked. “My dear girl… that’s already been the case for some time now. He just hasn’t made it official yet.”

Rebecca was crushed.

“Please,” she begged, falling to her knees. “There’s gotta be something… some way I can get him to love me again… please! He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, he’s all I have, please! You’ve gotta do something, PLEASE!” She sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Mr. S looked down at her, unmoved. “Well… I suppose… there is one way you could show your devotion to him. If you’re really that serious.”

Rebecca’s head snapped up and she gazed upon Mr. S as though he were the avatar of her salvation. “Yes!” She cried. “I’ll do anything! Please!”

Mr. S smirked.

“…No… no, Jake, you-you can’t!” Rebecca shook her head frantically. “I’m your girlfriend! Remember?! You-you can’t just-! Why-?!”

Rebecca’s whole world was ending. The season had ended, and Jake had decided that their relationship, or what was left of it, had ended too.

“Sorry, but… you were always holding me back,” Jake said, looking coldly down at the girl he’d once claimed to love, while Jennifer hung off his arm, looking more gorgeous than ever in her triumph. “I like you, Rebecca, but… look at everyone. They’re all beautiful, and you’re just… you.”

“But that’s because of the audience!” Rebecca howled. “THEY didn’t want me to get any physical transformations! I-I would have done anything, looked like however you wanted-! But they-!”

“Always blaming other people.” Jennifer crinkled her nose and shook her head in disgust. “Pathetic, really.”

Rebecca’s voice cracked in her throat. “…But I love you…” she squeaked. “I… I’m pregnant, with your child! Isn’t that-?!”

“That’s exactly it,” Jake said. “You think I want to be a father? When I could spend my time having great sex with Jen and everyone else instead? Becky, you wanted to have my kid for you. Because, what, you thought you could tie me down that way? That I’d end things with the other women I love and go crawling back to you like the pathetic loser I used to be?”

Rebecca whimpered. “No, I… I just… I just wanted to make you happy… I love you, Jake…! I always have… I never thought you were a loser...”

Jake let out a tired sigh. “Well, you know what would make me happy? If you left and I never had to see you again. We had fun, Becky, but I’ve always known I could get a better woman than you deep down.”

Jennifer purred, running her fingers along his transformation-enhanced pecs. “And now you have several.”

“But Jake! Please!” Rebecca blubbered, one hand clutching her swelling abdomen while the other reached desperately out to the only person she would ever be capable of loving. “I can’t live without you, please!”

Jake shrugged, already bored with plain, frumpy Rebecca. “Bye, Becky.”

Season End

“What are you doing here?”

Mary jumped, frozen to the bone by the ominous voice. She scrambled to her feet and turned to see Dakota standing in the doorway.

She looked angrier than Mary had ever seen her.

For the first time, Mary wasn’t sure that she was safe from the other woman’s wrath.

“Duh-Dakota…” Mary took a shaky step backwards, her hands trembling. “I-”

“You saw. Didn’t you?” Dakota advanced, murderous rage blazing in her golden eyes.

Mary whimpered. “So… that was what I thought it was… that woman… she was…”

“My mother.” Dakota said the word with more venom than Mary knew was possible. “That’s right. The worthless, pathetic wretch.”

“She… she was a contestant… on one of these shows…” Mary scrambled to put to words what she’d figured out while watching that season. “And your father, he was-”

“I don’t have a father,” Dakota hissed. “Weren’t you paying attention?” She clutched her cane tightly, tapping it loudly on the ground with each step she advanced towards Mary.

“Thwomp. Thwomp. Thwomp.”

“My mother,” Dakota continued, “never loved me. Not really. Even as a child, I could tell… she wanted nothing to do with me. I was worthless to her. Dakota Johnson? Worthless. Unwanted. Unloved. But Dakota Evans, well…”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It wasn’t her fault!” Mary could only imagine what Dakota must have gone through… but after what she’d seen… “You saw it yourself! It was this show! The audience! They voted, they made it so that your mother could never love anyone but that… that son of a bitch!”

Dakota stopped, surprised for a moment by her language. She stared at Mary, her eyes stony and her expression unreadable.

“…And?”

Mary blinked. “…Eh?”

“And, so what?” Dakota took another step forward. “Does that change anything? Does it magically make it all better, like Amelia kissing one of Nick’s boo-boos?”

Mary gulped. “No… n-no, of course it doesn’t…”

“It’s ironic…” Dakota sneered, shaking her head. “All my life I wondered what was wrong with me. Why my mother couldn’t love me. I thought I was broken. Wrong. But… the truth is, that she just never could. All because of this show. And I didn’t realize… until it was too late to change things.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled.

“…I hate this show, Mary,” she confessed finally. “I’m so tired. I just want it to end. It’s all meaningless, pointless… but… I can’t let it end… I can’t…”

“Because then you’ll never be with Nick…” Mary realized. “You’ll never see him again…”

Dakota sneered at her. The pain in her golden eyes made Mary weep. “Like mother like fucking daughter, how’s that for irony?”

She shook her head.

“…It doesn’t matter now.” She took another step forward. “I thought… that I could do it differently. That as a contestant, I could get a better outcome than that wretched woman. But in the end… I wasn’t chosen.”

Then Mary realized the truth. Like a slap across the face. Tears welled up in her eyes and she looked at Dakota in bitter betrayal.

“…That’s why you gave me those pills, isn’t it?” She spat. “Why you pushed so hard to get me pregnant.”

Dakota let out a tired sigh.

“My father abandoned my mother after he knocked her up. Never thought about her again. You’re right, Mary. You’re completely right. I thought that if that happened to you, if Nick got you pregnant… then he’d abandon you, just like that man did with her…”

She actually smiled. If you could call that twisted slash across her face a smile.

“But in the end, the joke was on me.”

Mary clenched her fists. Frustration, anger, and betrayal shot through her like molten lava, and she struck Dakota across the face.

“SMACK!”

Dakota didn’t even flinch. She hardly even registered it. She just slowly turned her head back, and looked at Mary with sunken, tired eyes.

“Feel better?” She mocked the redhead.

“…I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Mary said. “And for what happened… to your mother. That was horrible. But why hide it?! If Nick knew-”

Dakota lunged forward and wrapped her fingers around Mary’s throat. The wild look in her eyes froze Mary in place, and she stared, horrified, at the woman in front of her.

“Nick is never going to find out about that tape,” she rasped, tightening her grip. “No one is. Do you understand me?!”

The painful truth Dakota had tried to hide for so long had now been exposed. Brought out into the light.

She couldn’t allow that. She would drag it back into the darkness if it was the last thing she ever did- even if that meant dragging Mary into the darkness along with it.