Lovers...

Emily watched her reflection in the mirror of the coffee shop's lone bathroom, trying to remind herself that the florescent light always made her look uglier than she actually was. She applied a pink lipstick that matched her highlights, and some blush that she hoped would cover up the freckles. Emily hated her freckles, even though Jake said he liked them, and had grown even more self conscious of them over the three-ish months they'd been together.

Probably because he's over 30 and they make you look like a fucking teenager.

It was the same doubting Thomas that always questioned what she was doing with Jake; an internal skeptic that knew he was too old for her, that he'd only just gotten out of a serious relationship, and warned that their lives were in totally different places. She ignored it, as ever, and for the same reason. Because despite all red flags Jake represented, and how much she hated to admit it...she was slowly falling in love with him.

It had started innocently enough. Jake was a regular at the shop, as well as a dive bar she tended as a second job to make ends meet in this maddeningly expensive city. At first he'd been one of a carousel of faces that rotated in and out of her routine, albeit a lot cuter than most. But one night he'd seemed more glum that usual when he stopped by the saloon, and, mostly just to ensure he didn't represent some immediate danger, she asked him if he was okay.

He'd just broken up with his fiance, she'd learned; a sort of heat **** that had come after their goals had drifted apart. Rather than embittered, Jake wished her the best, and seemed more disappointed in himself for not living up to what she wanted than angry. That had been the first thing about him that had impressed her; the grace with which he'd handled his separation. Emily was even more impressed when he thanked for listening, left relatively sober, and given her a generous $100 tip for her troubles.

Soon, he started appearing more and more at shop and less and less at the bar, chatting her up in the morning before work, often for a couple hours at a time. A strange reversal took place then, and she became the one telling him everything. Her struggles in the art scene, the parade of disappointing manchildren that made up its dating pool, her parents' disappointment in her and the financial strain she lived under for refusing their assistance. It turned out that he was nothing like the swaggering douchebags she normally associated with Wall Street types, but a caring, supportive listener to whom she was quickly spilling her guts.

"So, I have this exhibit coming up," She'd finally said one day, "I'm showing off some interpretive pieces. It's supporting affordable housing."

"Oh really? That's awesome!" He said. "Glad to hear you're getting out there."

"Would you go with me?"

She'd surprised herself as much as Jake with the question. She'd meant to ask if he'd come and check out her work, not if he'd go with her. Still, it had been the right question; the one she'd meant. And by the time he responded, she'd already decided to commit.

"With you?" He asked.

"Yeah. As a date." She said.

"Sure," He agreed, less hesitantly than she'd feared. "As a date to this or...other things in the future?"

"To this for now, with...let's call it a put option for future investments?"

He'd laughed at that.

"Did you look that up just so you could ask me out?"

And that's how it started. It had been going well, too. In him she'd found a supportive guy, and a blessedly mature one. Unlike boys her age, Jake had finished the process of sorting out his bullshit that most guys her age hadn't even started. His money was certainly a good bonus, though she bent over backwards to make sure she wasn't taking advantage of it, refusing to directly aks for help or even admit to the money troubles that seemed to constantly plague her. They had fantastic chemistry in bed, too, and their inability to keep their hands off one another was entirely mutual.

It hadn't all been perfect. Rachel, her best friend and roommate, absolutely hated him, a feeling she suspected ran both ways. Though her other friends liked him well enough, all of his seemed to look on her with a strange sort of pity. All of them but his best friend, anyway, who seemed less mature than even a lot of guys her own age. Her parents loved him, but she'd only shared a single meeting with his family; a dinner with his little sister Megan that was made awkward both by her shyness, and the unacknowledged, though universally recognized fact that Emily was even younger than she was.

And of course, there was Hannah, his spectral ex fiance that haunted everything. Though she'd caught him wanting to say something about her, he'd not opened up one iota about his previous relationship since that first night they'd struck up conversation. She suspected that was at least, in part, a sign of his maturity. But she also wondered the extent to which he was really over it.

Those creeping doubts had led her to this moment, stripping naked so she could fool around in a coffee shop she'd closed, which if caught, would almost certainly cost her a job she couldn't afford to lose. In the end, she wanted to impress the guy she was slowly going crazy for.

She finished teasing out her hair, which, unbound and fluffed up, fell to her shoulders in pink and gold waves, then stepped out of the bathroom wearing nothing but her sneakers and service apron.

"Sorry about the wait, Mr. Cooper." She said in a sultry, come hither voice, before asking "Is there anything I can get you?"

...to an apparently empty room.

Jake was gone. His laptop remained, with his phone plugged into it. But otherwise, the room was completely, utterly desserte.

"Jake?" She asked the apparently empty room.

She looked to the door, but found it was still bolted. He couldn't have re-bolted it from the outside, so...he must still be around somewhere.

By the time she'd turned the place upside down, she'd really begun to panic. She reached for her phone and texted both Rachel, and his best friend Ryan. Rachel, saint that she was, called back almost immediately.

"Heya Gorgeous. What's up?" She asked.

"Rach, I'm really freaking out here," Emily answered by way of greeting, "I'm at the coffee shop with Jake...or I was with Jake...but then he just freaking vanished on me!"

"Ugh, I fucking knew it," Rachel answered from the other end of the line. "Older guys are only ever after flings. Let me know when you can close down. I'll come over. We'll get drunk and forget all about him."

"No! You don't get it!" She said, panic rising. "He's not here! Like at all. Rapture level vanished into...In..."

"Emily, you have GOT to calm down on me. He probably just..."

But Rachel's words were lost on her. By now she was drifting into the same state of semi-consciousness that, unbeknownst her, Jake had only minutes before.

"Sorry, Rach. He's right here," She heard herself saying. "Gotta go!"

She ended the call just as the world went dark.

*****

Emily came to in a small, dimly lit room, sitting in the sort of cheap office chair that had been lining conference room desks since the late 80s. As she woke up, she became aware first of her strange surroundings, and then of her bare ass and back. Wherever she was now, she was still wearing what she'd stripped down to back at the coffee shop.

Other details came into focus. There was a small conference table in front of her, but she was the only one sitting at its only chair. It was dark inside, but for a projector which beamed something onto the opposite wall; a list of rules of some kind that she couldn't make any sense of. There was a mouse and a keyboard on the desk in front of her, and an experimental wiggling of the former sent a cursor dancing around the projected image.

The room only had one visible exit; a door on a nearby wall, through which sunlight shone. She got up and attempted to open it, only to find the electronic lock on the door blinking red. That's when she saw a note taped to the door.

Welcome to the Hotel,
Please read and accept the rules to continue onward.
Your host,

__Leah <3

Assuming (correctly, as it turned out) that the projector bore the rules she needed to agree to, she sat down and began to read. They shouldn't have made any sense. A TV show? A harem? Transformations? It was like the premise of some bad, overly horny visual novel. Yet despite their absurdity, Emily found she had no trouble believing any of it, nor understanding her own position as a contestant. It all seemed correct, in spite of its impossibility.

At the end, she was able to click a box that confirmed she'd read the rules. It then asked her to relay two emergency contacts; people from the outside world with whom she was allowed to communicate and who would understand her whereabouts and the trouble she was apparently in. She tried to answer with her Mom and Rachel, but this latter gave her some kind of error message. Eventually, she settled for her Dad.

That being done, the door on the far end of the room gave a loud buzz, the light on its electronic lock switching from red to green. Emily walked to it, opened it, and found herself blinding by a tropical sun.

"Emily?" A familiar voice called.

As the sun brightness faded, she saw Jake standing next to some strange woman she'd never seen before. He looked worried about her.

"Jake?" She asked, running toward him, recklessly at first, then with more caution as she hopped between the stepping stones on the pool.

"Welcome to the game, Emily," The strange woman greeted in a cultured accent. "Please take a seat."

Suddenly she realized two things; this woman must be Leah...and Jake must be the "master" the rules had described. Whatever this show was, she'd be competing for her own boyfriend.

Jake got up to come to her, but Leah put out a hand.

"Let's not be showing any favoritism, love," She cautioned. "It's not only unfair to the others, but it might put your girlfriend here at odds with the audience."

Jake hesitated, then frowned.

"I'm sorry, babe. You'd probably better do what she says. These people have a lot of stuff they can do."

Reluctantly, Emily nodded, then took a seat on the round bench, looking up at the pair of them.

"Can I at least get some clothes?" She asked.

"I think you look rather fetching like this," Leah said. "And in any case, it can wait until we show you to your quarters."

She nodded, clinching the apron tight against her body, fidgeting to do the best job she could of hiding herself from whatever cameras might be filming.

"Our next contestant," Leah said "Is a 30 year old real estate broker from upstate New York, the middle of three sisters, and someone intimately familiar with our master."

Jake let out an audible groan.

"Leah, please...She won't want to be here."

"None of you want to be here, darling," She corrected him. "But she will be here regardless. So let's meet Hannah Green."