You are my Buddy until the end

The girls looked at each other. Buddy System? What was that?

“Allow me to explain,” Sylvia said, and the screen wiped clean again. “When I went over the rules last time, those were the general rules for most seasons of Harem Hotel. Sort of the bare bones, as it were. But I came up with a way to… spice things up, shall we say?”

Nick winced. Whatever this twisted woman had in mind to “spice things up”, it certainly wouldn’t be good.

“The way the Buddy System works is that each of you girls will pair off with a buddy,” Sylvia explained. “You will live in the same room as your buddy, be friends with your buddy, just have a grand old time in general!”

“This is so complicated,” Dani groaned. “Just when I thought these dumb rules were making sense! Why couldn’t you tell us this earlier?!”

“The producers decided now was the appropriate time,” Sylvia answered with an answer that wasn’t an answer at all. “Because there’s one other thing that we need to talk about.” She turned to Holly. “Holly my girl, you asked me before, who would be sleeping the master’s room for the two days one of you won’t be?”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Why?”

“Well, this is where I’ll explain it to you.” Sylvia cleared her throat. “Now, I’m sure you girls are all excited to get the chance to show your appeal to your master.”

Nick glanced at the wary and frustrated girls. “Excited” wasn’t the word he’d use.

“…Whatever. But the issue with this system, where it’s just the eight of you competing time and time again, it can get… well, a little repetitive. And, if I’m being honest? At a certain point, a lot of people just stop trying.”

She scrunched up her face into an exaggerated frown and crossed her arms. “And we DEFINITELY don’t want that!”

Nick rolled his eyes. Why was she being so dramatic?

“Just get to the point.”

The voice came from a shocking source: Dakota. Her golden eyes glared at Sylvia, and Sylvia glared right back. Then her expression brightened and she smiled.

“So how do we keep you girls from becoming complacent?” Sylvia asked, stroking her chin thoughtfully. Then she gasped as though genius had struck her. “Why, by elimination, of course. This IS a game show, after all. So of course there's a chance of contestants being eliminated."

“What happens if we get eliminated?” Dani demanded. “Do we get to go home?”

“You’ll no longer be bound to the master, and will be asked to leave the harem,” Sylvia said with a nod. “Of course, your presence will still be required until the game has reached its conclusion so you won’t be allowed to leave the premises, but you will no longer have to take any challenges or spend time with the master.”

“In that case, you can eliminate me right now,” Holly said.

Sylvia smirked. “Cute. But elimination isn’t the picnic you think it will be my girl. No, if you’re eliminated, as a final goodbye, you’ll be given a ‘farewell’ transformation. And it won't be as light as the one you got today, no, these are the kind of transformations that will warp a person’s life forever.”

She walked over to Mary and wrapped her arm around the trembling girl. “Imagine Pretty Mary Sunlight here. Her transformation, making her desire getting pregnant? Well, there are quite a few things we could do with that, my girl. If Mary got eliminated? Well, how about this?”

Sylvia touched her cane to Mary’s womb again and the girl moaned out, clutching her belly.

“It burns!” She wailed. It felt like something inside her was kicked into overdrive.

“I’ll bet it does,” Sylvia nodded solemnly. “From now on, whenever you have sex, regardless of what time of the month it is or how much contraception you use, you will get pregnant. Guaranteed. Even if your fella happens to pull out.”

Mary turned white. “B-But…”

“It’s what you wanted, right?” Sylvia smirked. “The Bible says sex for purposes other than procreation is a sin, is it not? And just to be safe, I gave you a boost to your libido as well, and removed your ability to orgasm from anything other than a penis in your little cunny. Sounds to me like you’ll be having a whole litter of kids, eh?”

Mary felt like she was going to throw up. She collapsed in the sand and began to hyperventilate. The others looked at her with shock and horror. No one wanted to be condemned to a fate like that. Only Dakota seemed unperturbed. The fate that awaited her should she be eliminated had already been stated.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “I believe I’ve made my point,” she said, touching Mary with the cane once more. Mary’s breathing returned to normal as the hot feeling in her gut wore off.

“There. I reversed it,” Sylvia assured her. “But that’s how it is. You get eliminated? Your life as you know it will be completely destroyed. There’s no escape here, my girls. Only victory.”

“How do we keep from getting eliminated then?!” Mary pleaded, clutching Sylvia’s leg. Her eyes were wide with fright.

“Simple enough,” Sylvia chirped. “Before the challenge for the round, just make sure your point total is a positive number.”

“Th-That’s all?” Mary sighed in relief.

“Oh, but no matter what happens, someone will be eliminated after every challenge,” Sylvia added. “It wouldn’t be a game show without stakes, like I said.”

“What?!” Nick exclaimed. His sentiments were echoed by the girls. Mary slumped back, shaking.

Dawn frowned. “I have a question.”

“Figures the smarty-pants would,” Sylvia said.

“First, what does this have to do with the Buddy System you mentioned? I assume those two things are linked. Second, isn’t this counterintuitive? If the goal is to build a harem for Nick, yes? So, what would be the merit of eliminating a girl after every round? By the end of all the rounds, there won’t be any more girls left in the harem.”

Sylvia batted her eyelashes innocently. “Oh, won’t there?”

Her response caught Dawn off guard and she wasn’t sure what to say.

“This is the second new rule I’m implementing,” Sylvia stated. “As I said, with the Buddy System, you will be paired off with one of your fellow contestants. And this first round will just be about getting used to the system. But starting next round, we’ll be introducing a new rule. I call it: A Trial Run Audition.”

Trial Run Audition? But that sounds like… Nick had a very bad feeling about this.

“A harem should be a dynamic thing, changing to suit the master's needs and desires. It just won’t do if the master ends up with girls who just aren’t compatible!” Sylvia shook her head and made an “X” with her arms. “That’s why every round, we’ll be introducing an Auditionee. A ninth girl, whose spot in the harem is temporary, lasting the rest of the round. A probationary harem member, if you would.”

“WHAT!?” Nick exclaimed. “You’ll be dragging someone else into this mess?!”

“Eight more people, in fact,” Sylvia said. “In total, my boy, your harem will have you select between sixteen different girls. The eight here, and then eight more, over the span of eight rounds. Some will stay, some will go, but only eight will make it to the end."

She paused. "...Well, I said select, but frankly, the choice won't really be up to you. You'll just reap the rewards. But here's how it will work. After this round’s challenge at the end of the week, your ninth girl will arrive. She won’t get a room here, rather, she’ll be spending the first night with you, the master. Then, over the course of the next eight days, while you spend time with each of the girls in your regular harem, our lovely little Auditionee will make the rounds, spending the night sleeping with the chosen girl's buddy. Building bonds, getting to know her, a little lesbian sex, all manner of fun things. And then we come to the night of the popularity poll, or as I like to call it, the Final Night. Her last chance. Our Auditionee will spend the entire day with the master, proving to him and the audience that she has what it takes to be in his harem, devoting herself to him however she can. Doesn't that sound just wonderful?”

No, it sounded sick and wrong. Sylvia wanted him to take advantage of **** girls for his own pleasure and then throwing aside the ones who didn't measure up. He was going to be sick.

“And then what?” Nick scowled. “I choose whether or not I want her to join the harem?”

Sylvia blinked. “What? No, of course not. I would never **** you to make that decision! As I said, the harem can only have eight girls. So if your Auditionee makes the cut, well…” She turned and scanned over the contestants with a cold eye, smiling a delightfully mad smile.

“One of you will be eliminated in her stead.”

“I still don’t get it,” Kim said, shaking her head. “If Nick isn’t choosing, then how do we know if she… well… makes it in or not?”

“That’s where the Buddy System comes into play, I’ll explain that now,” Sylvia said. “When I compared this show to the Bachelor before, I wasn’t being technically truthful. Rather, it’s more like that one game show, The Fifth Wheel."

Everyone stared at her with blank looks on their faces.

Sylvia looked around. "Hello? The Fifth Wheel? Two men and two women go on a joint date, and then a fifth wheel comes in to shake up the status quo? Debuted in 2001? Ran for three seasons? Hello? Anybody?!"

Kim raised her hand awkwardly. "Um, I was born in 2003, so..."

"I don't watch trash television," Dawn sniffed.

"Daddy says TV is the church of the unholy one..."

"GOD do none of you girls have any culture?!" Sylvia groaned, slapping her forehead. "Whatever. Just picture one of those sexy shows where a bunch of coeds hook up with one another, and the odd one out is eliminated. Only with more sex of course,” she added with a smirk.

Kim rolled her eyes.

“I’ll be picking the first set of buddies for you,” Sylvia explained. “That buddy will be your partner all the way until the end of the second challenge, since we won't have an elimination this week. At the end of the challenge, the buddies will be reshuffled. Let me demonstrate. Stand in your order of arrival, please.”

The girls got in line, staring tensely at one another. Dawn's tail flicked wildly in the air, betraying the anxiety her cool face kept hidden.

“Okay, pair off just like this. Gina and Dawn, you’re buddies, Dani and Carly, Holly and Mary, and Kim and Dakota. This will be just for an example.”

The girls split into the groups Sylvia ordered them to.

Dani swallowed. Between pairing off with the gorgeous Carly and trying to wrap her head around these complicated rules, her brain was beginning to short-circuit.

“Here’s how it works. With every challenge, you’ll receive a ranking in order, remember? That’s how you’ll get your victory points,” Sylvia explained. “Now, this next part is important. You want to pay attention to that order, because for each pair of buddies, the one with the higher placement in the ranking will get immunity from being eliminated.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “So what you're saying is that it doesn’t really matter how high we place. As long as we do better than our buddy, we’re safe?”

“Essentially correct,” Sylvia nodded. “You could get 7th place, and as long as your buddy is in 8th, it doesn’t matter. You’re safe.”

So in other words, even though they’re our “buddies” they’re actually our biggest threat, Dawn realized. If we want to stay safe in the competition, then we just need to do better than our buddy… or sabotage our buddy's chances of winning.

She met Nick’s eyes and he winced, looking down. So he figured that out too, huh? Figures, he's always been clever, even if he never applied himself.

This is horrible, Nick thought, shaking his head. _They should be working together to resist Sylvia however they can, but the way this game is structured will make them fight against each other._

If Sylvia's goal was drama, this was a pretty potent way to get it. Even Nick was impressed, in a horrified sense, anyway.

“I think you see where I’m going with this,” Sylvia continued. “Every round, four members of the harem will be safe from elimination. But the other four members of the harem will be on the chopping block, along with the Auditionee, of course. And that’s how we reshuffle the teams. Starting with the victor and going on down, you will each pick one of the five remaining girls to become your new buddy for the round. You can pick the same buddy as before, or someone brand new, or even the Auditionee, it really doesn’t matter. Use your best judgment. And the selection will continue until, finally, one poor lonely girl is left with no buddy at all. And when that happens…”

She slashed across her neck and made a “shhllck!” sound.

“So the Auditionee is basically trying to make friends with all of us, so one of us will save her from elimination by picking her as our buddy,” Holly noted, making a sour expression. She despised rules like this that encouraged backstabbing and manipulation. No way around it though. If I don't want to get dragged into this, then the only way is by winning.

Sylvia glanced at the uneasy faces on the girls. “I’m sure some of you are thinking about how you might want to sabotage your buddy in order to get ahead. I’d advise against that."

She paused. "...Okay, well, no, I wouldn’t, because I thrive on chaos. But if you want to stay safe, then it’s probably in your best interest that you don’t make yourself out to be TOO big of an asshole. Because I promise you, no one at Harem Hotel is always a winner. You WILL lose at some point, and when you do... the others will remember how you treated your buddy… and may very well leave you to your fate for someone a little less toxic.”

A cloud of silent tension hung over the group. The setting sun wasn’t the only reason it felt like they were getting colder.

Sylvia smiled and clapped her hands. “Come on, everyone! This is fun! It’s supposed to be fun! This whole system is about building relationships! Making connections! You don’t have to be so down about it!”

"That's easy for you to say," Nick muttered under his breath.

Dawn nodded in agreement, taking the opportunity to assess her competition. Gina was a complete burnout, even after her new makeover. She'd seen a hundred losers just like her when she was a student, not a threat at all. Dani was strong enough to be dangerous, if these challenges came down to brute ****, but she clearly wasn’t that smart. Dawn could probably handle her. Carly, on the other hand... she'd be tricky. This whole competition revolved around Nick, and in terms of physical charm and willingness to use it, Dawn wasn't even in the same zip code as the cosplayer.

She shivered at the thought that she might have to do sexual things with him in order to stay in the game.

Holly was probably safe, in contrast to Carly. She despised Nick; that hostility alone might sink her. And her friend, Mary, was practically catatonic, the poor thing. She was the least threatening of anyone here. Kim was a little trickier; she may have been younger than the rest of them, but Dawn knew what determination looked like, and the schoolgirl had it in spades. She was the kind of girl who would work hard to succeed, which made her a good opponent.

The biggest wild card was Dakota. Dawn couldn’t get a read on her at all. She wondered how that would change as the rounds went on.

Kim and Dakota are probably my two biggest obstacles in terms of gameplay… and Dani in physical challenges... Carly is a threat because she’s the type who will probably get her Victory Points through sexual forwardness…

All the girls were asking themselves the same question right now:

Who do I want to have as my buddy?

Meanwhile, Nick wasn't sure if he should say anything. Sylvia didn't like his interruptions. And besides expressing outrage at how sickening this whole system was, he didn't know if there was anything he could say to make this better.

“I see you girls are all thinking hard about this...” Sylvia narrowed her eyes into slits. “Perfect. Then, shall I tell you who everyone's buddies will be?”

The girls tensed up.

"...Right after a short break!"

She turned to the camera and winked. “Who’s going to be paired up with whom? How will the Buddy System affect the gameplay, and the relationships between the harem and the master? Before those questions can be asked, however, we need to see who’s hot and who’s not! If you haven’t already voted in the popularity poll, this is your last chance!"

https://strawpoll.com/polls/jVyG814wzn7

Note: While Sylvia said that the girls will be picking their buddies for themselves in later rounds, the pairs themselves (and thus, who is being eliminated each week) will be decided by vote. I'll base the girls' in-universe choices and reasoning on the results of those votes.