Aubergine Egyptienne

Lily didn’t know how long she had been lying on the floor since Maddy left. The part of her that would have a sense of time moving by was numbed by the sense of guilt and sadness that was overtaking her. She felt like she should have run after Maddy, but what would she even say?

“Sorry, Maddy I’m freaking out because a part of me thinks you’ll betray me just like everyone I’ve ever cared about.”

The words were easy enough to think, why couldn’t they come out of her mouth? Why was she so insecure? Why was she here? Just to ruin things for everyone else? All she had done since she got here was yell, complain, and ruin everyone else’s efforts. All while riding her high horse like she was better than everyone else. She was the worst the absolute worst.

The tears on her cheeks had dried and she had at least stopped openly sobbing at this point, though her breathing was still coming out in low groans. She reached for the bed for support and turned her head to begin pushing her way up. Which is why she was so surprised to see the red eyes of Reyna peering down at her.

“Holy Fridgeballs!” Even despite the weight of her emotions, Lily found herself scrambling back from the leaned-over form of the assistant.

For her part, Reyna simply cock her head and raised an eyebrow, “Fridgeballs?”

Lily blinked and then sighed, “When I’m streaming I sometimes have to avoid cursing to make sure the VOD can be monetized…it’s leaked into my everyday speech sometimes.”

Reyna nodded with understanding and for a few empty moments the two just stared at each other before Lily broke the silence, “What are you doing here in my room?”

Perking up Reyna smiled and held up a finger, “As the assistant for the season it’s my job to see to your guys well being. You can think of Reyna as your go-to helper aid if you’re feeling down or sick. Not that we’d let you get actually sick during your time here. With our deadlines? Can’t waste that valuable screen time.”

Lily narrowed her eyes and looked at the redhead skeptically, “So what, you’re here to help me feel better? Well sorry but I don’t think that’s going to work out unless you’re a trained therapist.”

Grinning, Reyna began reaching into her coat's inside pocket and pulled out several things to cacophonous noise, a rubber duck, a trombone, a toy firetruck, a full wedding dress, and then a sealed counselor’s license that she held up proudly, “I can assure you I am well equipped for all sorts of tasks mundane and magical,” She reached into her coat again and then pulled out a pair of glasses that she donned on her face and then a clipboard for taking notes.

She then sat on the bed and leaned towards Lily while gesturing at a nearby chair, that for the life of her Lily did not remember being in the room before, “So tell me what zeems to be ze problem?” Reyna asked putting on a fake Austrian accent.

Lily sighed, there didn’t seem to be any point in telling the assistant she didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her, so she climbed into the chair and pulled her knees against her chest, “The problem is I can’t trust anyone, even no maybe, especially the people I care most about. The moment I like someone and I start sharing things with them, I keep thinking about how they’ll use it against me. Every time something happens that I don’t expect, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the people I trust most to reveal they’re actually my enemies and that they really hate me and have been mocking me behind my back.”

“Yes interesting,” Reyna had already dropped the accent and was jotting down notes on her clipboard paper, “Where do you think these feelings stem from? Can you name some instances that you think may have triggered such feelings in you?”

Lily scoffed, “As if you don’t already know the answer, isn’t it the reason why you brought me here?”

Reyna held up a hand, “It is not my place to judge as your therapist, I am here purely to help you work through your feelings so that you can return to being sexy as soon as possible.”

Rolling her eyes Lily sniped, “Yeah I think my boyfriend of two years cheating on me and casting me aside gave me some major trust issues ok? Happy now?”

Reyna tapped her chin with her pen, “Not happy, Lily despite what you may think and whatever motivations you may think you have I am trying to help you. Are you often hostile towards those who try to help you?”

“I…” The words hung in the flower girl’s mouth and she felt heat and embarrassment rise to her face. She hadn’t even noticed the tendency to push people away, and now this joke of a woman was calling her out on it.

Nodding in a conciliatory fashion Reyna continued, “There there, there’s no need to be embarrassed, we are here to help unravel these behaviours and to better understand them.”

“Actually, we are here because you broke into my room and now won’t leave,” Snapped Lily.

Reyna waved a hand dismissively, “Paltry details, now tell me what is the relationship like with your parents?”

Lily narrowed her eyes, she was sure given everything else the show seemed to have scrounged up that Reyna already knew the answer, “It’s strained alright?”

Reyna nodded, “And does that have anything to do with how they clearly favor your older sister over you?”

Lily held her hands up to her head and shook it, “Shut up, this isn’t helping! Just get out!”

Reyna undeterred continued, “It seems to me that your past experiences with those you cared about are polluting and corrupting your chances at forming new relationships. They also will clearly be interfering with any potential progress you could make with Caleb on your date tomorrow.”

“Shut up! I know this already, ok?! I’m broken I get it! Why am I here? Caleb will never like me again, the other girls already must hate me I know it!” She had buried her head in her knees and was shaking it furiously.

“Well the answer is straightforward and simple, you just need to go back to a time before all this happened to you. Then you would have no issues dealing with Caleb and the others.” Reyna smiled and tucked away the clipboard.

Lily pulled her face up to look at Reyna incredulously, “Oh right, let me get right on that. Where’s my time machine so I can go grab my college-age self? Or better yet just forking lobotomize me so that I can’t remember anything that happened to me. You’re right so forking simple I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

Reyna’s smile was unwavering, “Oh dear you seem to have forgotten where you are. Here on Harem Hotel, the impossible is trivial. Let me tell you, you don’t need a time machine or even the lasting damage of a lobotomy. All you need is BP and a friend.”

After finishing the workout, Amy and Caleb had split up so they could wash up. Amy had told him to dress casually for their date and to meet her in her room. When he had gotten back to the Master’s Suite, Caleb found it empty. Stella must have gotten up because of Lucian, Caleb could only hope that she was tracking down Maddy to apologize for her behaviour yesterday.

He quickly washed up, getting all the sweat and grime off from his workout earlier. He dressed as requested, pulling out a basic t-shirt and jeans combo. After his previous interactions with Amy, it was interesting that this felt much less like a date to him. The other girls he had had the apprehension and nervousness that came with trying to get someone to like him. With Amy, he felt more like he was hanging out with an old friend, and honestly after how this week had been? He needed a friend more than he needed a date.

As he got off the elevator, he was met with an out-of-breath Stella climbing up the stairs, “Oh there he is, our wonderful Master. Feeling proud of yourself for this move?”

From the stains on her shirt and overall complexion, it was obvious that the Bartender had been running around. Caleb crossed his arms, “Complain all you want Stella, but after the shit you pulled yesterday, having to apologize to me and Maddy is the least you could possibly be asked to do.”

The diminutive woman glared at him and then gave a mock smile, “Well Caleb, I am so sorry for my actions yesterday. Clearly I was in the wrong. Now please point me in the direction of Maddy so I can end this farce, I’ve been looking for her all morning and can’t find her.”

If Caleb had to guess, she probably was out of plain sight in one of the kitchens, but did Stella deserve help after everything? “No, consider finding her to be part of your punishment.”

Giving off a groan that was part growl Stella started running down the stairs, “Fuck you, Caleb!”

The Master shook his head, he hoped that maybe by the time Stella found Maddy she would have reflected enough to understand why he had done this. Still, even if she didn’t knowing that he had this power now might discourage her from pulling something similar in the future. He clenched his fist and stared at it, feeling a sense of control that was both foreign and intoxicating. Shaking his head from the revelry he turned to make his way toward the Columbina Suite.

He knew he didn’t have to but decency compelled him to knock and after a few moments he heard Amy call from inside, “Come in Caleb, I just finished setting up.”

Caleb turned the knob on the door and walked in. At the far desk in the room sat Amy. She was dressed in a leather jacket, black crop top, and jeans, casually leaning back as she gestured at him to join her. In front of her was some sort of computer.

“What’s this?” Caleb grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to Amy before sitting next to her.

“This…” Amy said gesturing at the the blue screen, “Is a generative AI I’ve been training on previous seasons of Harem Hotel. Now before I get your hopes up, it’s pretty rudimentary. I only had my company’s base language and speaking model to work with, so it’s not that bright.”

Caleb looked at the computer shocked, “You made all this in the last few days?”

Amy shook her head, “No like I said, a lot of it is a base framework I had with me on an SD card. Technically against company policy to have a back up but I’ve seen too much work lost for dumb reasons that I always keep it with me on my phone. Most of what I had to do was just tailoring the training model and getting it to actually compile on this piece of shit” The Oni gestured to the netbook.

She began typing and a black screen pulled up with a prompt window, “I fed it transcripts from as many seasons of Harem Hotel as the Faun’s could get to fit on the same SD. Unfortunately, that’s not too many. Each of these seasons includes descriptive text. Millions of words. Still enough to be able to get some information on our situation. Some of it good, some of it bad…some I’m not sure what to think about it.”

Caleb remembered what she had alluded to this morning, “So that’s why when Lucian offered the deal you didn’t say anything?”

Amy nodded, “Host deals are a mixed bag. They’re never usually fully good or bad just…you have to be careful. After what you said about wanting to do your best as a master I didn’t want to discourage you just…warn you.”

Caleb nodded solemnly, “So then what have you learned? Anything helpful or maybe at least make me feel a little less shitty about all this?”

Amy sighed, “Well however we might feel about our season, it could be much worse. Seasons are loosely divided by the fanbase into Light side and Dark side. Light side has an emphasis on wish fulfillment that usually results in happy sex. While Dark side has a lot more emphasis on breaking its participants.”

Giving her a blank stare Caleb asked, “That’s supposed to be encouraging? We’re clearly a dark side season. Unless I am woefully misinterpreting the LITERAL demon running the show”

The oni chuckled, “No the good news is that it’s not just about which side a season is on, it’s a spectrum. We are probably considered dark side by most viewers but there is much worse. Caleb there’s a whole **** porn season about getting a teenager to break people who tangentially hurt his life. We all maintain our agency right now and you’re only getting told to make a harem. Also we need to thank our blessings. Normally eliminations happen at the end of each round and…Caleb they’re just as bad as we think. One of the lightest was a woman becoming the sex **** of the man she loved and being **** into loving being cucked. That was one of the BETTER ones.”

Caleb looked on in dismay raising a hand to his hair and running his fingers through it, “So we’re thankful that it’s not as bad as it could be?”

Amy nodded, “And that you’re the master, obviously. You haven’t **** yourself on anyone. You may not be surprised to find that this is not a universal truth in this show.”

“Is there anything else? Anything less ambiguous, any definite wins?” Caleb’s tone was defeated.

Amy shrugged, “It depends on your point of view but…yeah? Caleb maybe this will be a surprise to you or less a comfort but people do legitimately have their lives improved on this show, no matter what side they fall on. People get over phobias or other conditions, people learn to love themselves, people fall in love, some even get married.”

Wringing her hands together and then shaking them before leaning in towards Caleb, “We all heard what Lucian said. This is about entertainment for the audience, we’ve assumed that’s a bad thing and I don’t think we’re wholly wrong. But the same audience that wants to see us broken also would want to see us happy. So maybe we’re in a screwed-up situation. Scratch that we are in a majorly fucked up situation, but it doesn’t have to end badly. We have some control, maybe not a lot but enough to try and get our happy endings.”

Caleb tried to process what the Japanese woman was saying and frowned before asking, “What do I need to do to make that happen?”

Sighing Amy threw up her hands, “Caleb you have to be the perfect man for 8 different women.”

Caleb started laughing, “Oh! Is that all? Well then why was I ever worried” followed by a heavy groan and his head in his hands.

Amy leaned over and rubbed his back.