Fences

Chloe stumbled out of the facsimile of a house as the golden afternoon sun hit her eyes. She found herself alone.

Raising a hand to shield her gaze, Chloe scanned the neighborhood set for Samantha but the other woman was nowhere in sight. Concerned, Chloe checked her watch. They had the soundstage rented for roughly another half hour. Could they leave early? What happens when the rental expires? Chloe kicked herself for not asking the receptionist more questions and began to search for Samantha.

Chloe circled the cul-de-sac twice before she began to call out Samantha's name. She knew that the simulations of the neighborhood residents wouldn't be able to hear her yell, but she still had to fight the weight of the social stigma. Her calls went unanswered. Chloe briefly considered searching the neighboring ranch houses, but she knew she didn't have time to get through all of them. She stopped in the middle of the asphalt circle to think.

Chloe decided to not even bother searching the houses. If Samantha had chosen one to hide away in the odds of Chloe finding her before the soundstage rental expired were slim to none. She needed to prioritize her search, but where? This was Samantha's childhood neighborhood, one she presumable knew forwards and backwards, but this was Chloe's first time ever seeing this street. Where to start?

Chloe slowly spun in place, considering the location in front of her. Samantha had clearly been upset by the scene in her childhood home and fled, but to where? As Chloe's gaze fell upon Samantha's home, she thought back to her own childhood neighborhood.

Where did she go? Where would I go?

Suddenly, it dawned on Chloe. She thought of the place from her childhood. That secluded part of her neighborhood where the local kids would go whenever they wanted to escape prying adult eyes. In the case of Chloe's childhood it was a wooded patch of a couple acres, complete with a small creek, between her neighborhood and the next housing development. Chloe had played in the creek there, and returned home wet and muddy. She had talked to her friends about her confused crushes there. It was the place where she had first learned the meaning of “sex.” Not in the physical sense, but in the confused musings and misinterpretations of girls barely teenagers.

Every neighborhood had a place. The refuge children escaped to when their feelings, dreams, and games grew too big and messy for adult supervision. A place to discover yourself, the world, and everything in it. But where was Samantha's?

Chloe immediately struck off between two of the ranch houses. Wherever the sanctuary of the neighborhood kids was, it certainly wouldn't be visible from the street. She emerged from between the houses and stopped still. There was nothing behind the houses. No wooded lots, no gullies or creeks where a group of kids could sequester themselves. Just patchy grass, dirt, and sand. A ways off a rough clapboard fence demarcated the boundary between this neighborhood and a new development that was “COMING SOON.” Based on the worn signage, Chloe surmised that “soon” was supposed to be several years ago.

Before Chloe could begin to circle around the rest of the houses and continue her search, a woman stepped out of the backdoor of one of the ranches, and let fly that immortal cry of mothers everywhere:

“Kids! Dinner!”

The woman disappeared back through the sliding glass door she had emerged from, and so did not see (or chose not to see) the two children slip through a gap in the fence and begin to run back home. Chloe recognized the older one as one of the kids that had gotten off the bus earlier that Samantha had identified as a friend. As Chloe directed her steps towards the fence, a third kid slipped out through the opening. This one moved with a distinct lack of urgency, apparently having yet to be summoned home but choosing to return nonetheless.

The gap in the fence was a tight fit for Chloe. She had to turn sideways and stoop to fit through it, which brought her pert breasts and butt in contact with the surrounding boards. Thankfully, her struggle was brief and she soon found herself on the other side.

Chloe found herself facing a massive oak tree, its roots sprawling and knotty, breaking the ground like the tendrils of a wooden kraken for yards around its base. The trunk was ancient and scored with decades worth of initials from children fumbling with a pocket knife for the first time. The oak's heavy limbs stretched wide and swooped low - some only feet off the ground - perfect for climbing. Perched on one of the lowest limbs was Samantha. She was hunched over, her arms hugging her waist and her legs dangling, staring at the ground. Her hair fell around her face, hiding her expression.

Chloe approached slowly, trying to find the right thing to say. She ran out of space before she found the words, so she settled for lifting herself up onto the limb and sat next to Samantha.

“Hey,” Chloe said so softly it was almost a breath. Samantha made no answer, made no indication that she had heard Chloe at all. Chloe glanced down at the roots and dirt beneath their feet, but saw nothing that would draw Samantha's attention. She stretched, reaching with one of her dangling feet until she touched one of the nearby roots with the tip of her toes.

“Want to talk about it?” Chloe asked.

This at last drew a response. Samantha's shoulders shook as she took a long, shuddering breath, and exhaled forcefully through her nose.

“What's there to talk about?” she replied flatly. “You were there, you saw it.”

Chloe found herself slightly swinging her dangling legs in the air. It made her feel like a kid. Heck, she basically was a kid. Just two years out of college, only to be magically kidnapped and now trying to play therapist. She felt widely out of her depth.

“Why didn't your grandmother like that show?”

“She didn't like most shows,” Samantha snorted. “She's Catholic. Very Catholic. She thought I would be corrupted by the 'power of television,' or something like that.”

Chloe just nodded as Samantha pushed on.

“And it wasn't just TV. I loved fantasy books as a kid, but she hated anything that had magical powers in it. She would say that magic came from the devil.”

“That sounds rough,”

“It was terrible. Do you know how alienating it is to not be able to talk with your friends about the TV shows they're watching?”

Chloe's fingers felt the branch beneath her, tracing the crude markings gouged into the bark.

“What did your parents think?”

“My parents weren't there. They both had to work all the time, so Abuela basically raised me. They trusted her completely.”

Samantha raised her head with a sigh and stared at the first hints of twilight gathering on the horizon.

“The worst part? She wasn't a bad grandmother. She cooked dinner most nights and helped me with my homework. She took me to soccer practice when I thought that was a thing I wanted to do, and she never missed a game. If mom had to work late, Abuela would read with me before I went to sleep.”

Samantha's knuckles whitened as her hands tightened on the tree branch.

“It was her one stupid hang-up. She wanted to keep me pure and uncorrupted, according to her faith. Her perfect little angel...”

Chloe watched as Samantha kicked at a nearby tree root. Her leg swung wildly, not quite long enough to connect. Chloe didn't know how to bring Samantha comfort, so instead she shared.

“I've known I wanted to be an actor since high school...” Chloe's voice sounded distant and tinny. “I joined the drama club my sophomore year and we did A Christmas Carol. I didn't even have a lead part, but I caught the bug.”

“When I told my mom she said I should have a 'more serious' plan for my life. Sure, she attended every school play and local troupe show I was in no matter how small my role, but she always reminded me that acting was just for fun. Even when I got accepted into DePaul's Theatre School she kept asking me what I was going to do for my 'real job.'”

Samantha laughed bitterly.

“When I told my grandmother I was majoring in Creative Writing she thought I was learning to become a secretary.”

Chloe couldn't help but laugh. At first Samantha's eyes went wide at the bright airy sound, but slowly a wry grin crept onto her face.

“I don't know about you, but I think we've seen enough,” Chloe said, when she'd finally recovered. She slid slowly down off the branch, watching to make sure she found solid footing among the tangle of roots. She turned back to Samantha, and offered her a hand.

“Ready to find the exit?”

Samantha hesitated before reaching out and firmly taking Chloe's hand.

“Too ready.”

Chloe helped Samantha slide off the branch and the two of them began to walk back towards the simulated neighborhood.

******

Sarah gave up on Harem Hotel: Island Holiday Season after five hours.

It's not that it wasn't good. Sarah was the head of the television division at IGI Talent, so despite her own feelings regarding reality dating shows she could recognize engaging TV when she saw it. What she was seeing was most certainly engaging TV. However she wasn't watching the show to enjoy it, she was watching to learn.

Sarah had wanted to see other seasons of Harem Hotel to look for anything she could use to resist the transformations, Ava, hell maybe the whole damn system, but she had yet to find any useful piece of information, save one...almost.

The Host of the season she was watching had provided each contestant with a hefty copy of the official rulebook, and one woman, in a herculean effort, had actually read the whole thing in one night. Which made it all the more infuriating when said woman told the Master the following day that she was keeping her knowledge to herself.

“I’m in this game to win it. I hope you won’t hold that against me?”

Sarah could and did. She didn't buy the diminutive brunette's claim that the rulebook “wasn't very helpful anyway” for a second, and if she could strangle her through the screen she would.

As the contestants gathered for an awkward breakfast on-screen, Sarah reviewed the tablet that had been left for her use. There was a small section of the tablet screen dedicated to what was currently playing and another that displayed information on the other two seasons she had requested be pulled. It took a little bit of fiddling, but Sarah soon found what she was looking for. She sent a request to the projection booth to stop playing Island Holiday Season and start one of the other seasons. After thinking for a brief moment, Sarah sent a follow-up request that the projectionist start with the first full day of the season. Island Holiday's opening introductions, first transformations, and following resort tour had taken up nearly two hours and Sarah saw no reason to sit through another version of an inter-dimensional icebreaker.

The projected images on the screen suddenly cut off and the house lights came on shortly after. Sarah remembered being told that the projectionist would have to physically switch film rolls and so it would take a few minutes to meet her requests. She took the opportunity to review her notes.

The first page of her yellow legal pad was nearly overflowing with writing. At the beginning Sarah hadn't quite been sure what she was looking for so she had jotted down anything she thought might be useful. Anything and everything about the Host, the Master, the contestants, the relationships between those three groups, the opening transformations, even the setting. She had comprehensive notes on them all. She frowned as her eyes traced the page. Useless comprehensive notes...

The next page was sparser and the third page sparser still. As she had watched, Sarah had discovered that she had drastically underestimated how much footage there was of the season. After five hours she was barely on the third full day. She had expected the focus of the show to largely revolve around the dates spent with the Master and the nights spent in his bed. Those moments had certainly been highlighted, but she hadn't thought that so much time would be dedicated to interactions between the contestants. Watching the women work out their petty (and some not so petty) drama made for good TV, but it revealed nothing about the forces and systems at work in the background. It did leave Sarah wondering uncomfortably about just how much of her past few days had been documented for public consumption.

The house lights flashed twice, then slowly began to dim. Sarah flipped the legal pad to a fresh sheet of paper, and positioned her pen at the top of the page expectantly. She stared at the screen as it blazed to life with a flash of light and sound. It was disorienting, suddenly being dropped into the middle of a new place and cast of contestants without introduction, and Sarah was beginning to wonder if maybe she should have suffered through the opening episode after all. Thankfully it turned out this season apparently used a cold open and the camera gradually pulled back for an establishing shot, revealing massive stone walls and spiraling turrets. Sarah's eyes widened slightly.

Is that a castle?

******

Robert was beginning to wonder if Ava pushing him to get out of his room more was a cruel joke.

It was his second day trying to be more out and about and he had yet to encounter any of the women around the hotel. He'd exercised in the gym, had lunch at Dorsia, and now had just finished a stroll through the hotel garden all without seeing another soul. Other than Simon, the hotel concierge, but that was assuming that enigma had a soul

Robert briefly considered returning to his room but he was feeling restless. Instead he directed his steps out of the hotel to the faux city street beyond and set off down the sidewalk. Robert liked to walk when he was nervous. It helped him clear his mind and sometimes come up with solutions. Failing that, it would keep him distracted from whatever was looming in front of him for a short while. However today it did neither.

While Robert had been nervous about meeting his dates for the previous two nights, this one he was actively dreading. He hadn't known Samantha before the show so it was easy enough to approach their evening together as a first date. Sarah he had only knew of, but it was nice to discover that there was a person behind the icy exterior and the pantsuits. But Bailey...Robert didn't know Bailey any better than Sarah, but the one thing he did know about her was the source of his dread. She was engaged to someone else.

Robert reached the end of the block, spun on his heel, and reversed course, his mind racing. How on earth was he supposed to spend a romantic evening with his coworker's fiance? Worse, how was he supposed to spend six romantic evenings with her? Robert and Thomas weren't close, but he respected his office mate more then that. At best, this evening was going to be a blatant recognition of how screwed up this show was. At worst...

Robert tried not to think of Bailey's rage during the premiere episode, of the way her face twisted as her body pleasurably betrayed her. If she was still carrying that anger this could be a uncomfortable evening to put it mildly. Hell, this could be an uncomfortable forever. When they returned to the real world irrevocably bound together, how would Thomas react? Could Thomas and Bailey maintain their relationship? What would that situation even begin to look like?

Robert returned to the hotel feeling no better then when he had left. There had been no sight nor sound of Bailey all day and the fact that he didn't know where or even if to meet her was doing nothing for his nerves. When he inquired at the front desk Simon dryly informed Robert that no one had left him any messages today. Robert still couldn't bring himself to return to his room so he decided to circle the first floor of the hotel again on the off-chance he encountered someone else.

As he turned down the plush carpeted hallway that ran in front of Dorsia Robert was surprised when he nearly ran into a pair of pale thighs encased in high stockings. He couldn't help but stare dumbfounded at the way the legs ran up under a short frilly skirt and then connected to a shapely pair of hips that were currently pushed up in the air. A pair of panties teased him as they occasionally slipped into view as the skirt shifted with the gently rocking hips.

It took Robert an embarrassingly long time to stop staring and realize that all of this was attached to a person, a maid in fact, who was currently cleaning up a spilled plate of food off the floor. Red-faced, he tried to reassure himself that he was only staring because he had been stunned by unexpectedly finding someone else and not for...baser reasons. The maid was too busy scrubbing to notice him, something he was infinitely grateful for. He found her presence a little odd. Since the show had started Robert hadn't seen any hotel staff besides Simon, and until now he was beginning to assume that the whole place just ran on magic.

Trying not to stare, Robert began to shuffle past the maid in that awkward way people slip by staff members cleaning up a mess so the customers don't have to. Unfortunately, he was so determined not to stare that he wasn't watching his feet. As he took a step, his foot came in contact with the plate, sending it careening down the hallway. The maid froze, her head kept low.

“Oh my god! I'm so sorry!” Robert exclaimed as he chased after the plate. He retrieved it from where it had skidded to a stop, and brought it back to the maid, still bent over on her hands and knees and frozen staring at the floor.

“I'm so sorry,” Robert repeated. “Here.”

He held the plate out to her. At first the black haired maid didn't respond at all, and Robert wondered if she was perhaps deaf. But then one of her slim arms reached out to take the plate from him. She had to raise her gaze from the floor to see where to reach and when she did Robert could see her face clearly for the first time. He didn't recognize her at first. When he had last seen her she had been trapped in a outfit he felt semiresponsible for, but now...

“Cassandra?” he gasped. “What happened?”

She grabbed the plate from his hand without meeting his gaze then dropped her head down, hiding her face from him. Cassandra went back to scrubbing the floor again, but now with a new-found aggressiveness like she could scrub this moment out along with the stain. She ignored his question until he repeated it softly.

“Cassandra, please...What happened?”

Robert watched as Cassandra sighed and her shoulders drooped, seemingly realizing that she wouldn't be easily rid of him. She resumed scrubbing as she answered.

“I upgraded my transformation because I was tired of wearing gowns and heels everywhere.” Her face was still hidden, but her voice was wet and ragged. “Now my clothes change to fit whatever activity I'm doing.”

Robert's eyes traced the parody of a maid's uniform Cassandra was dressed in, but all sense of titillation was gone now. She'd escaped one prison of fabric only to fall into a different one.

“Your other...change,” he said slowly. “It makes you clean up messes, right?”

Still staring at the floor, Cassandra nodded. Robert thought if she scrubbed any harder she'd put a hole through the carpet. She didn't see him nod back, but she watched out of the corner of her eye as his shoes disappeared down the hallway. Her eyes wet with tears she refused to let fall, Cassandra continued to desperately attack the stain in the carpet when a dishcloth hit the floor beside her. It was soon joined by a small pail of water, and then by Robert himself. He grabbed the dishcloth, wet it, then begin scrubbing at the other end of the stain she was working on.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

Robert re-wet his dishcloth, wrung the excess water out, then turned his attention back to the stain.

“Helping.”