Day 1

All eight girls sat in the Hotel’s dining area, eating breakfast. Leah and Juliette were seated far away from the rest of the group, talking to each other quietly. Dr. Kane, Paige, Mikayla, Elisa, Brianna, and Marissa were all sitting together, though Mikayla was near the edge, away from the others.

Earlier, all of the contestants were woken up by a knock on their door. A staff robot had come by for each of them, bringing them to the dining area after giving them time to get ready. They all grabbed food from the breakfast bar before sitting down.

Mikayla was uncomfortable with being around so many people close to James, but it was better than sitting by herself, and especially better than sitting with Leah and Juliette. She’d never hated someone more in her life.

Well, she knew in the back of her mind that it wasn’t really Leah or Juliette’s fault. If she were being honest with herself, she’d admit that she was jealous of them and their relationship. She loved James, and she’d never really recovered mentally or emotionally after what she felt was a horrible betrayal.

It was a struggle for her to deal with the whole situation, and she wanted to blame someone, to make someone the bad guy, but it wasn’t truly anyone’s fault. It wasn’t James’ fault for being forced into the marriage and breaking up with her. It wasn’t Leah’s fault for also being forced into the marriage while she had a girlfriend. And it definitely wasn’t Juliette’s fault for just dating Leah. That wouldn't stop her from blaming them, though; she was still mad.

After the breakup, she’d managed to very quickly get her life back on track and distract herself. She started playing soccer for the first time since she was a teen, started going back out with her friends.

But James was always deep in the back of her mind. Her friends tried introducing her to other guys, but she was rarely interested in the first place. If she was at any point, that interest fell away the second she started comparing them to James. She looked at the other girls at the table, wondering if James still loved her.

Marissa was speaking with Brianna about James. Out of all eight of the girls, Brianna was the least oppositional to the whole situation. In fact, it appeared that she actually liked the idea of having a relationship with him, and didn’t care too much about other women being involved.

“I mean, he’s hot, so like why wouldn’t I?”

Marissa sighed, holding her head in her hands.

“I mean, I guess you’re one of the only ones here that doesn’t have a reason to be against it, other than the whole 'no choice in the matter' thing. But still, you’re not uncomfortable with the fact that there are seven other girls?”

She almost stumbled over the number seven. She was so confused by Brianna’s nonchalance that she forgot that she was one of the ones competing over James. Over her brother. It was not something she wanted to think too much about. At least, not yet. She needed to talk with James soon.

The blonde shrugged, going back to eating her breakfast, a surprisingly normal plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. On a sign near the food buffet, it stated that no one would gain weight from eating the food unless they wished to, so Brianna ate breakfast for the first time in almost 8 years.

Her normal routine of skipping breakfast was to maintain her slimness, something she depended on for cheerleading in high school and just generally to look her best, a “strategy” one of the seniors told her when she was a freshman first starting cheer. She definitely appreciated that having a slim waist made her, already naturally big, breasts and hips look even more attractive.

There was only one guy she had to worry about impressing, and he seemed chill to her. Looking down at her top, she tugged it down a bit, exposing more cleavage than she was already. Not enough to expose her bra, though. That’s trashy, and she was hot.

On the other side of the table, Elisa ate peacefully, listening to the conversation between Dr. Kane and Paige, occasionally pitching in herself. As two younger women, both of them took Dr. Kane’s life advice to heart, listening to her tell them about what went wrong with her first marriage and what she could have done better. And if the professor’s transformation had anything to do with that, the world would never know. (Hint: It did. It had a lot to do with it.)

Dr. Kane had taught enough people around their age range to know how to read them very well. It was obvious to her that Elisa had a crush on James the size of the moon. She could also tell that Paige saw James as a peer, and she wouldn’t settle for anything but the best situation for her. If she were stuck becoming a part of his harem, Paige wouldn’t allow herself to be anywhere less than at the top of it.

Overall, most of the girls were getting along. Obviously, Leah and Juliette were outcasts, but at least they had each other. Mikayla felt out of place, having no one at all to share in her discomfort with.

“Good morning, everyone!”

Isabella walked into the room much more cheerful than most of the contestants, a sleepy-looking James following behind her. The Master yawned into his hand, leaving Isabella’s side to grab some eggs and toast from the breakfast buffet. He took a seat next to his sister, sitting between her and Brianna after the blonde girl smiled and scooted over to give him room to sit.

No one responded to the host, causing her to pout. She skipped around the main table, listening to the contestants chat. They continued to ignore her, their conversations going mostly uninterrupted. When she couldn’t get a reaction from the 6 contestants at the main table, she skipped over to Leah and Juliette’s table, causing them to go silent as she approached.

“Sooooo… What’s up with you guys? Don’t wanna sit with the rest of the group for some reason?”

Leah frowned at her, and Juliette rolled her eyes.

“Uh, no. Even if we wanted to, do you think they’d let us? Have you seen the looks half of them give us?”

Isabella ignored Elisa and Mikayla’s glares at the duo from behind her.

“No idea. Whatever could you mean?”

The couple scoffed, turning back to their food and not continuing their conversation. The host sighed, leaving them alone and going back to the main table. Juliette grabbed at Leah’s hand, frowning at the initial flinch from her girlfriend before holding her hand over the table.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out. No matter what, just remember I love you, okay?”

Leah smiled softly, holding Juliette’s hand tighter.

“Yeah, I know we will. I love you, too.”

Juliette was not as confident as she let on. Leah flinching when she reached for her hand made her feel… weird. When the transformations were first revealed, intellectually she knew what it meant for her and Leah. But seeing the effects of it right in front of her eyes turned the transformation from just floating text into reality.

Back at the other table, Marissa whispered to Paige, trying to convince her to go along with a prank. The idea was to change one of the contestants’ outfits to something embarrassing, but Paige refused, saying she didn’t want to cause drama, at least not so early.

Marissa sighed. She was disappointed, but it was reasonable, and she understood. She took a bite of her cream cheese bagel, huffing slightly as she realized how difficult pranks and jokes would be for her now.

In the back of her mind, Paige secretly did want to do that. She wanted to mess around a bit, have some fun. It’d been so long since she had felt like she could let loose and just be, after always worrying about what was “trending” and managing her models and designers.

But it wasn't so simple. She needed allies, people she could tentatively rely on during challenges. She needed their trust, if only to force any betrayal to be to her advantage rather than her detriment. Not that she was planning on betraying anyone, of course…

Isabella’s boredom finally broke her, and she stood on top of an empty table and got everyone’s attention.

“May I have your attention, please! You guys can’t just sit around all day, so you’re going to go out and do stuff! I don’t care who you do it with, or what you go do, just please actually go do something! Explore the island, make out in a closet, go fishing, literally anything you want to do.”

James and Marissa waved goodbye to (most of) the others as they walked down the brick path outside the Hotel’s entrance. It split off into several different directions, each path having signs informing the island’s inhabitants of what was in that direction.

They decided that going to the garden first seemed like fun, and started making their way down the long path. Along the way, they saw a bunch of things, both strange and strangely normal. There were occasional bathrooms, but there were also occasional… “Quickie Stalls”, according to the signs above their doors.

The island itself was certainly an interesting sight. It was beautiful, with luscious trees and perfectly displayed hedges along the path, and they weren’t even at the actual garden yet. It was still morning, so the sun was still low, and the way the sunlight filtered through the trees mesmerized them.

They walked together in a comfortable silence, but there was still a sort of strangeness in the air, an elephant in the room they needed to address. James sighed, interlocking his hands behind his neck and looking up at the sky.

“We should, uh, probably talk about it. We’re going to have to eventually.”

Marissa frowned, looking down at the ground in front of them, tracing the pattern of the bricks with her eyes. It wasn’t an “ignore it, and it’ll go away” situation, as much as they both wanted it to be.

“Yeah… but based on what Isabella has said so far, I don’t think we really have a choice, do we?”

The girl looked at her older brother out of the corner of her eye. If they weren’t related, she wouldn’t really mind the situation. Sure, she'd be mad about being kidnapped, but other than that, not much else. Their father always told her that since she had a choice in who she married, she needed to make sure that her husband was her best friend, so she didn’t fall into the same mistakes he had made. Obviously, James didn’t get that same advice.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was eighteen years old; she shouldn’t have had to be thinking about who she’d be spending the rest of her life with yet. Especially not when that man was destined to be her brother.

They had grown up together and were as close as could be, even with the age gap between them. The whole “Harem Hotel” thing threw a wrench in that the second they both realized they didn’t have a choice. Either she would go willingly, or she would be punished with changes to every aspect of herself, every part of her that made her her.

She didn’t blame James. She was actually relieved that she had someone who loved her there to help her through it, even if he was kind of the center of the problem. James sighed, reaching out to hold her hand as they neared the garden’s entrance.

“No, we don’t. But… I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I’m going to save as many of my vetoes as I can just in case you get given something… you know.”

She squeezed his hand, holding his arm against her.

They walked into the garden and were surrounded by thousands of flowers, each and every single one utterly unique and beautiful. Neither of them could spot a single flaw, not a single withered petal or a bent stem in the whole field.

They continued walking through the field of flowers, reaching a separate, enclosed area. It was still part of the garden, but they could only see a few flowers there; the space was instead dominated by a thick, jungle forest of massive trees, vines, bushes, and shrubs. It was more difficult to traverse, with the terrain more uneven and the occasional root sticking out of the ground.

While they were walking, one of said roots tripped James, sending him toppling into a wall of vines. Marissa, still holding his hand, fell with him. The siblings became tangled up in the vines, every movement made with the intention of getting out only making it harder to do so. They ended up essentially tied together by the vines, in a rather unfortunate position.

James’ crotch was pressed directly into the curve of his younger half-sister’s ass, their hands still held together, wrapped up in the vines enough they couldn't let go. Both of the Bird siblings attempted to struggle their way out, only making the situation worse as they were forced to be pressed tighter against each other.

“Please tell me you have something in your pocket.”

…

“Hey, Isabella? Are you there? Little help?”

The host was not there. She was currently laughing to herself across the island.

After an uncomfortable hour, the siblings had managed to escape from their previous situation. They would likely have been much more excited about that fact if it hadn’t required them to strip most of their clothing. James was forced to lose both his pants and shirt, while Marissa only needed to remove her blouse. Or, well, James needed to remove her blouse for her, as she couldn’t move either of her hands.

A very awkward minute of re-clothing themselves later, the two siblings slowly and carefully exited the jungle area, watching their step and surroundings intently. They managed to make it out without any further mishaps, and decided to relax for a moment.

Back in the flower field, they found a rather cozy-looking bench and took a seat. If they were sitting a little further away from each other than normal, neither of them pointed it out. Marissa, hair slightly disheveled and blouse crinkled, sighed as she looked out at the flowers.

James leaned to the side of the bench, looking around for a moment before picking a single flower, one that stood out to him amongst what had to be hundreds of thousands of unique flowers. It was one he recognized, a pink Chrysanthemum. Marissa’s favorite flower.

He nudged her side with his hand, holding out the flower to her, and she looked over at him. A smile bloomed on her face as she reached out and took the flower from him, holding it in front of her with both hands. They both shuffled closer together, sitting side-by-side on the bench. Marissa laid her head on James’ shoulder, and he laid his on the top of hers.

“So, like, pink is def my color, I already know that. But what else? My sisters say that I look good in everything, which is obvi, but you’re the fashion lady, so I wanna know what you think. Kk?”

Paige nodded along mindlessly as Brianna spoke.

The two girls had managed to find the shopping district of the island, a series of stores, restaurants, and more, all spread around a large plaza. There were a myriad of different stores, ranging from clothing to Harem Hotel-branded knickknacks to straight-up sex toys.

While they obviously wouldn’t be going into that last one (at least, not together), they did check out the different clothing stores. Normally, stores would have different sections for different types of clothes, but in the plaza, each store sold a different style.

The first one they checked out was filled with summer-comfort style clothing, like crop-tops, loose shorts, and sundresses. They grabbed a few outfits from there, Brianna convincing Paige to get a matching outfit with her. Then they went to a store filled with clothing that Paige could only describe as slutty, with the blonde girl grabbing the shortest shorts Paige had ever seen. If the rich girl also grabbed a few things for herself there, it’s not like Brianna would've cared.

Then, as Brianna called it, “fancy schmancy” clothes were next. A tasteful wine-red dress for Paige, and a slightly less tasteful light-blue one for Brianna. They went through what felt like dozens of stores, eventually both carrying four full bags of clothing on each of their arms.

They were walking between stores for a couple of hours, taking a few short breaks to check out non-clothing stores and entertainment. They found a nice-looking movie theater, but they chose not to go see anything just yet. There were other places, too, like an aesthetic outdoor bar, and a… gladiator arena?

The girls continued walking.

Brianna spun around with the bags in her arms, letting the momentum carry her.

“This was, like, so fun! We should totes do this again.”

Despite her initial reluctance, Paige actually did enjoy her time shopping with Brianna. Normally, the slightly younger girl wouldn’t be someone she’d associate with, but everything about what was going on was abnormal. They went to leave the plaza, heading back towards the Hotel.

“Yes, it was fun. I’d enjoy-”

“I hope you girls aren’t leaving without paying!”

Brianna screamed in fright as Paige flinched, the sudden appearance of the show’s host scaring them both. After the two contestants had calmed down, they looked at Isabella with confusion.

“Why would we pay when leaving the plaza and not when leaving the store? And how are we supposed to pay?"

Isabella smiled widely.

“You guys have to pay in BP! But, well, neither of you have any since it’s only the first day of the first week.”

Brianna looked disappointed, but Isabella held up a finger.

“But! I’ll give you guys a little loan so you can buy the clothes. You just have to have a itsy bitsy little transformation for the entirety of the time the debt is unpaid. Deal?”

Paige sighed. She was too smart to accept a loan from whatever kind of being Isabella was on a show where she was just as likely to become a sex slave as she was to be a sex slave with rights. She wanted to be at the top of her game, making sure as little about her changed as possible while also being appealing enough to James.

Brianna gave the host a thumbs up.

“Sounds good!”

Paige facepalmed. It’s not like she can stop the other girl from making stupid decisions, just as long as they only affect-

“Great! So you both now owe 2500BP!”

“…Both?”

Isabella smiled at Paige.

“Yup! The deal was for both of you to take a transformation while you pay off the loan. You'll both share the same debt, so it should be fine. Here are your transformations! Sorry, audience, you guys don’t get a choice in what they are this time.”

The host held up her hand, and two screens of text appeared in the air above her palm, each reading one of the girl’s transformations.

Lundin Temporary Transformation #1: Careless
From now on, this contestant will be generally careless about inconsequential things. A nipple showing? Oh well. Master has his hand on her ass? Okay.

Bell Temporary Transformation #1: Prince and the Frog
For every day that this contestant goes without a kiss from the Master, and only the Master, she will slowly become more frog-like, while remaining human: legs thickening, her tongue getting longer, finding herself hopping more often, occasionally saying ribbit. These changes are permanent unless reversed separately from this transformation.

“What the fuck is this?!”

Paige was not one to curse often, and she rarely needed to yell. But when she read her temporary transformation and its effects, that went out the window.

“Permanently!? Temporary is in the name!”

She pointed at Brianna, who was looking at her awkwardly.

“Her transformation barely even changes anything! She probably wouldn’t even normally care about stuff like that! And I get something that permanently turns me into a fucking frog?!”

Isabella smiled at her.

Elisa followed Dr. Kane to the kitchen. When they asked if they were allowed to make stuff for themselves, Isabella told them they were free to and directed them to the Hotel’s kitchen. When they arrived, they saw entire pantries full of ingredients, everything either of the women had ever seen in their years of cooking and baking.

Elisa put a finger to her lips as she perused the shelves upon shelves of ingredients, trying to think of something she’d like to make.

“Dr. Kane, would you like to try to bake some cookies? I know James would appreciate it, and hopefully some of the other girls would as well.”

Dr. Kane smiled, nodding.

“That sounds great, honey. And I told you earlier, please just call me Amanda.”

Elisa shook her head as she started to gather what they needed for the cookies.

“I just couldn’t do that, Dr. Kane. Mister Bird has been asking me to call him by his first name since I met him. If he hasn’t convinced me in all these years, I doubt you’d be able to either.”

Dr. Kane sighed, helping Elisa take the container of flour off of a particularly high shelf that the short girl couldn’t reach.

“If you insist, then I can’t force you to do so.”

The two women began working in unison, mixing together the dry ingredients first as they chatted, then adding in the rest of the ingredients. Elisa had preheated the oven when they first got started, so it was almost done warming up as she watched Dr. Kane finish mixing chocolate chips into the considerably large batch of cookie dough.

“So, uhm, I was just curious. What do you think about Mister Bird?”

Dr. Kane hummed, moving over so that Elisa could help her scoop out small bits of cookie dough and place them on the trays.

“Well, he’s a smart man, and incredibly sweet. He's a very hard worker, as well.”

She looks Elisa over, smirking.

“I’d bet he cares a lot about you, and you care a lot about him. You two would be very cute together.”

Elisa focused heavily on shaping the cookie dough on the trays, ignoring the way her cheeks felt like they were burning hotter than the oven. She stayed quiet for a moment before speaking softly.

“...he doesn’t think of me like that.”

She’d never put cookie dough onto a tray with more intense focus in her life.

“Sweetie, you won’t know for sure unless you go and find out, now will you?”

Elisa nodded, eyes still fixed on the cookie dough in front of her.

The two of them finished putting all the cookie dough down, then slid the two trays into the oven, setting a timer. The two of them sat down while they waited.