Omelette Bruxelloise

Mornings at Harem Hotel were very picturesque. The perfect weather ensured that as the sun rose in the sky, it hit at just the right angle to send sunbeams cascading through the skylight of the lobby, causing an almost ethereal effect as if an angel were about to descend upon the hotel. But as you no doubt already grasp, in this place, at this time, no angels would be coming. The only thing descending was the elevator as the sharp ding announced its landing, and as the doors opened, shooting from the inside, red-faced and angry, came the master.

“MIRA!” Caleb called out as he stormed from the bossanova playing inside the elevator's interior onto the second floor. His footsteps were loud, his voice louder as he called out again, total disregard for anyone else who might hear, “MIRA! Get out here, now!”

His eyes were marked by lack of sleep, his expression tired underneath the anger. Since Eliza had told him what happened, he had been simmering inside, unable to sleep, unable to leave, feeling the outrage boil and tear at his insides until finally curfew had ended and he left the dozing professor to rest.

A door peeked open, and a sleepy Stella poked her head out, a bleary-eyed Maya looking over her shoulder as the imp asked, “Caleb? Why are you yelling? What fucking time is it?”

Ignoring her, Caleb pushed forward towards the Pierrot suite as more doors opened and the harem all watched curiously as the Master charged forward and began hammering on its door from the relative safety of their doorframes.

“Mira! Get! Out! Here! Now!” Caleb punctuated each word with a slam of his fist, causing Maddy to stare wide-eyed and recoil on each impact, and Amy to step past Lily into the hall.

“Caleb- slow down, what’s going on?” The Oni asked calmly, and she felt she had to despite her unease. She hadn’t ever seen Caleb like this since their arrival, angry, yes, but the way his face was contorted, she could tell there was pain there, too.

Unfortunately, she received no answer as the door to the Pierrot suite opened slowly and Mira stepped out. Her gaze was cast down, but it was notable that there was no confusion in her expression. It was clear to the rest of the harem, regardless of their own feelings, that she knew exactly why Caleb was here. Despite her current outfit of a black leather bodice, thigh highs, and black leather sleeves giving the impression of a dominatrix, her stature made her look smaller than ever.

The Bengali woman swallowed and averted her gaze momentarily before moving to meet the fury in the Master’s expression. She struggled to keep her voice even, presenting herself as calm, but there was a slight tremor to the back of her words, “Good morning, Caleb.”

She flinched as Caleb slammed his fist above her head and leaned over her, causing more than a few other members of the harem to jump as he leaned in, his frame dwarfing the woman in front of him as he glared down at her, and she raised her arms in front of her chest to create a semblance of a barrier between them.

Caleb’s palms were sweaty, his mouth felt dry, and his tongue started to move and stopped several times. He had thought about this all night, wondering how she might respond when he confronted her. Would she get defensive and plead not guilty and obscure her crimes, or brazenly admit to them and claim that she had done nothing wrong? Now in front of him, forcibly masking her feelings under a guise of being collected, he found himself at a loss for words before the venom surged from his throat in the simple word, “Eliza told me what you did.” He hissed through his teeth to the confusion of everyone else.

Mira’s expression didn’t falter, even as her hand trembled slightly before her other hand raised to hold it steady. She matched his gaze and kept silent.

Pressing on, Caleb leaned toward her, “How…could you do that? What was the point? Did you think you could keep it a secret?! What were you thinking?!” All the questions he had been holding inside since the previous night came tumbling out, filled with hurt, anger, and something else, a desperation for the woman he had known for years and trusted to justify herself, for this all to be a misunderstanding. “How could you sexually **** her like that?”

From the doorway of the Brighella Suite, Noemi’s expression darkened, and Maddy audibly gasped. In the Innamorti Suite, Lily stared aghast, both confused and appalled, while Amy tried to keep her expression even and began to move towards the two. From the Columbina suite, Stella pursed her lips, keeping uncharacteristically silent as Maya stared on, her gaze on Mira, her expression unreadable.

The agent opened her mouth, keeping her hand on her wrist, holding it in place; she kept her eyes locked on Caleb’s, seeing the betrayal in his expression. She sighed as the knots inside her coiled up tight. “She was stuck; she needed a shock. So I used Lily’s aphrodisiac pollen to create a situation that would simultaneously shake her out of her funk and also put her in an amorous state for your date. She was trailing on points and in danger of Elimination.” Her gaze turned and met Maddy’s trembling face, “I’m sorry,” she said as the blonde fell to her knees and started to cry.

Caleb's own arm was shaking now with barely contained rage, “I asked if you needed help! I asked if there was anything I could do!”

Mira’s eyes didn’t meet his, “You did, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. She had already given up; she needed something to focus on, even if it was-” Her words were cut off as Caleb raised his hand and slammed it down just above her head, causing her to flinch and recoil.

“You think that’s an excuse?! I held her last night crying because of how badly you hurt her for the sake of ‘helping’, did you think about anything else besides the scoreboard when you made this asinine plan?” Caleb felt like, with how hard he was gritting his teeth, that there was a real chance for them to break.

There was silence, and Mira rubbed her arm. The older woman looked so small beneath him right now. Her chin trembled slightly as she met his gaze, “I thought…if it helped everyone survive, it wouldn’t matter if they hated me, that I could do the awful things necessary for that survival.”

Caleb narrowed his eyes, and it looked like he might hit the Bengali woman for a moment before he **** his mouth open, “That’s disgusting,” He managed to get out, and Mira’s eyes widened as she stared at him “‘I need to do evil for the greater good, so it excuses any evil I do’ is a bullshit excuse. You had options, you could have asked for help, you could have done any number of things other than- THAT!” He swung his arm out wide, “It sounds like justification, you came up with the plan and then justified it, treating Eliza and Maddy like props to your scheme.”

Caleb's back straightened, and he looked at Amy before turning his attention to the general group, “I’m making this clear now! I didn’t think I had to, but we’re well past that now.” His fist clenched, “If I get so much as a sniff of any of you, treating another person in this group as less than a person, game or no game, I will let you fail.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, “I want us all to make it to the other side, but if this is the price to pay for that?” He shook his head and glared at the group, “I’ll live with the guilt to protect those that need protecting.”

Mira choked on a sound between a laugh and sob, “Sounds familiar…”

Caleb rounded on her, furious and she crumpled to the ground, “No! This is the part where you shut up. I am aware of the hypocrisy, the difference is I’m not trying to do this alone.” he looked at Amy and his expression softened before gazing at the rest, “If any of you, hear me suggest anything that puts you at risk, do not let me get away with it. We’re in this together, like it or not.” He turned back to Mira, “As for you, I rev-”

Amy shot forward and grabbed Caleb’s wrist, “Don’t, it’s right before a challenge.” Amy was forcing her voice to stay even, even as she felt panic and anger raging inside her, “You know you can’t take it back, and Lucian will twist whatever conditions you set.”

“She needs to be punished for what she did!” Caleb said through gritted teeth, “You didn’t see her…how she…” Caleb stared at his palms, “She wouldn’t stop shaking…even after she fell asleep, I watched as she trembled there.”

Imagining the professor in such a state made Amy’s chest ache, but she pushed forward, “Would this make her happy? Is it more important to punish Mira or to help Eliza?”

Blanching at the question, Caleb gently pulled away from Amy and looked down, “I…she…” He swallowed, “Help Eliza.”

From the floor, Mira looked over at Amy and quietly let out a murmured “Thank you.”

Amy turned her gaze down at the Agent, her features letting loose the contempt she had been holding back, “I’m not doing it for you, frankly, I’m disgusted by you right now. But we need to not be indulging in bringing each other down.” She glared down at Mira, “Maybe that’s what you should take away from this.”

“Oh my~ So much excitement bright and early in the morning, it’s a veritable party.” In a burst of flames, Lucian and Reyna appeared in the center of the hall. The devil was filing his nails as he smirked over at Caleb.

“You-” Caleb redirected his fury at the demon and took a step forward, “You knew about this! You let this happen. Isn’t this your show? How could you let her do this?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m supposed to stop sex on the sex show?” Lucian smirked over at the Master before tucking his file away.

“You should be stopping ****!” Caleb growled.

“Hmmm, well audience thought it was super hot though.” The demon said ascerbically and gave a chuckle with zero mirth behind it, “Not that our little Agent’s popularity did tank afterwards, figure that out. They’ll excuse the act if it’s sexy enough, but oh no, the person who did it is awful, I don’t care how many times I got off.” Lucian’s tone was mocking as he took a step forward and examined his work on his nails, “But that’s humans for you. Depraved little creatures.”

Caleb clenched his fists at his side. He desperately wanted to take a swing at the host, anything to wipe that smug expression off the demon’s face, but he held back. “Is there a reason you’re here besides rubbing salt in the wound?”

The Demon reached back and grabbed Reyna by the collar and tossed her forward, “Actually, yes. Despite there being no fanmail this round, someone has deigned to write to you after you sent fanmail to them. Why anyone would bother with such a sadsack as yourself is anyone’s guess, but…”

As Reyna was tossed, she did a little cartwheel and then landed in a split in front of Caleb before bouncing up and holding out a slightly bulging envelope, “Here you go, Master, all the way from HH’s very own Master, he seemed particularly moved by your plight.”

Reaching out, Caleb took the envelope in hand and saw that it bore signs of being opened before, “Did…did you read my mail?”

Reyna pouted, hands on her hips, and blew out a string of air, “We don’t have TSA here, so we have to inspect everything personally. Otherwise, the terrorists win! You aren’t on the side of terrorism, are you, master?”

“What do airplanes have to do with letters?” Caleb tucked the letter away not bothering to indulge in Reyna’s question, which apparently she didn’t care about anyway, as she somersaulted back over to Lucian's side.

Caleb looked over at Lucian, “So what? Rules apply when they **** us and not when they help us? Is that what we can expect from you?” he let out bitterly.

“Hmm,” Lucian hummed, “Are you sure you want to go down this path? Because if you really want, I could throw down a punishment, revoke some VP, a transformation, maybe even an elimination. It’s all up to my discretion.” The demon leaned forward on his slapstick and gave a fanged smile, “You sure you want to leave it up to me?”

Caleb recoiled as Mira stared up at him in grim hope that he wouldn’t sell her out this way. Finally, the master growled out, “No, fucking fine, just get out of here.”

Lucian smirked, “Always love our little chats, Master, don’t hesitate to reach out if you change your mind. I mean, you may remember I gave you a tool to keep these heathens cowed.” The demon gave a lackadaisical wave of his hand, “Not my fault if you don’t employ it.”

“I said, get out of here!” Caleb barked, and the demon gave a sinister chuckle as he and the assistant vanished in another flash of flames, leaving the group alone.

No one seemed sure of what to do now. Mira carefully climbed to her feet while clutching at the door behind her. Caleb turned and looked at her, and they stared each other in the eyes for a long moment before she ducked her gaze and slid back into the darkness of the Pierrot Suite.

Stella was the one who stepped forward, “Huh, what a way to start the day, huh?! I bet everyone is hungry, so why don’t we head out to breakfast?” The words sounded like her normal brash demeanor, but there was none of the natural energy usually behind them. It was very evident that the imp was putting on a display.

Caleb frowned. With Mira gone, he felt at a loss and stepped forward, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a bad…” He felt the energy drain from his body, the adrenaline that had been coursing through him was being flushed out, leaving only the cortisol and raw exhaustion, and the Master tilted and was about to fall to the ground when Amy ran over and caught him before he bashed his head on the railing.

Maddy gave out a yelp, and Lily called as she ran over, “Is he alright?”

Amy gave a stern nod, “Yeah, probably just drained, exhaustion. I’ll take care of it, everyone else, go on ahead to breakfast.”

The girls all exchanged looks between themselves, and then Maya was the first to speak up, “I’m sorry, I can’t pretend things are normal right now. I need to go…process.”

Noemi nodded, “Yeah, like, you can’t expect us to hear all that and go on and pretend nothing happened. Maybe we should all go our separate ways for now? Deal with your emotions however you need to, and we’ll see each other at dinner?”

Stella sighed and shrugged her shoulders, “Why couldn’t we get a therapist in our harem?”

Lily snorted, “They’d be quitting a few days in.”

Giving a small smile, Amy nodded, “Ok, see everyone at dinner then.”

With that, the group began to filter out, some leaving the hotel, others going back to their room, leaving Amy alone in the hallway with Caleb as she stared down at his face and just let out a quiet “Fuck.” of acknowledgement.