Chapter 45: Casting Call

WE HELD AUDITIONS for places in my harem. Don’t roll your eyes like that. Anyone who won a place on the crew was going to have a one-way ticket off earth. It’s one thing to agree to have sex with Bob and all the other women on the flight. That’s an easy choice for most of the aspiring actresses. It’s a different thing completely to know it is going to be for the rest of a very long life.

“So, what if you found out it was all real and you weren’t coming back to earth?” Liz suggested. She looked almost exactly like she looked fifty years ago, so no one suspected it really was ‘that’ Liz. She claimed to be a granddaughter.

“Yeah, right,” laughed the interviewee.

“Treat it as a serious question.”

“I’d sue. I need an acting gig, not a sex slave thing. Really!”

“Okay, thanks for your time. We’ll get back to you.”

“Wait. Don’t I have to fuck him?”

“Not during auditions.”

“Oh, shit. I was really looking forward to that.”

You get the idea. It was how auditions went. I was beginning to think this was entirely the wrong way to go about casting a crew for our ship.

“So, look. Word on the street is that you haven’t called a single person back for a follow-up interview or screen test. The professionals out there figure you’re just locking up audition footage cheaply.”

“Yet you showed up,” I said.

“Five hundred bucks for a screen test and I don’t even have to get naked? Hell, yeah.”

“So, you had an opportunity to look over the entire concept of the show. What do you think?” Liz asked.

“Well, I look around at you and that Mrs. Bob, and ... um ... even the camera crew. I figure you’ve got no shortage of pussy. So, you must be looking for something in particular. I’ve done my research and it seems there’s one question you always ask that gets girls turned down. I’m surprised no one else has figured it out,” she said.

I glanced at my clipboard with a copy of her resume and headshot. Deedee Thomas. She reminded me of someone. I couldn’t remember who. Okay, so you try remembering everyone you’ve met in 4,000 years! It’ll come to me. Or it won’t.

“And what question is that?” Liz followed up.

“What if I found out it was all real and I wasn’t coming back to earth?” Deedee said.

“And?”

“I’ll tell you after we shoot our test scene.”

Hmm. I kind of liked this girl. We’d developed a few scripts that we used for screen tests. They were short scenarios and not actually a script per se. We improvised within the scene because we figured the whole point of a reality show was improvisation. It needed to look like reality TV. We borrowed heavily from some classic sci fi for the scenarios. She read through the scenario we’d prepared for this scene and I took my place in the captain’s chair. The set was easily three times as large as what an actual ship would be, but it let us maneuver around easily. Deedee took a seat in the navigator’s chair below me.

“Captain, scanners are picking up an approaching object,” she began.

“Asteroid?” I asked.

“Not unless someone put a motor on it. It definitely shows signs of self-propulsion.”

“Put it on screen.” We pretended to look out a viewscreen in front of us. “That’s approaching a lot faster than anything we have in our data banks.”

“And it’s coming right for us!”

“Evasive maneuvers, Deedee!”

“It’s no use, Captain. It’s sticking with us. This is the end!”

With that, Deedee leaped out of her chair and propelled herself into my arms, knocking me back in the recliner I used as a captain’s chair. She began tearing at my clothes and her own.

“I can’t let it end like this, Captain. Not without showing you how I really feel. I’ve loved you since the first day I set foot on this ship. I can’t die without knowing what it would be like.”

By that time, she had our shirts open and slammed her abundant bare breasts into my chest and her lips against mine. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and my hands naturally found their way to her breasts. She would definitely be a nice addition to Areola. Her hands were busy below my waist, working my cock free. She flipped her short skirt up and planted herself on my cock with a fierceness that left me breathless.

“Fuck me, Captain. It may be the last thing we ever do and is the feeling I want to take into the afterlife with you.” By that time, there was no question that I was going to take the feeling with me as I thrust up into her amazingly wet pussy and she screamed against my shoulder. I began pumping into her as a buzzer sounded and a computer-generated voice echoed.

“Approaching object has self-destructed. The ship is no longer in danger. Repeat...”

“Yeah,” she whispered as she kissed me again. “If I found out it was all real and I was never returning to earth, I’d be okay with that.”

It’s amazing how much time people spend pretending to be something they aren’t—not just individuals, but entire countries. I think the most frequent pretense is religious. One country pretends to be Christian, another Muslim, and another Buddhist. Still another purports to welcome all religions. What is your country pretending to be?

But there are other pretenses as well. Back at Troy, the Greeks pretended to retreat and left a ‘gift’ of a large wooden horse for the Trojans. The next day, most of Troy had been put to the sword and I had collected all the priestesses of Aphrodite and taken them to the infinity room. Then I pretended to be Odysseus as I shoved off and sailed the Mediterranean, pursued by Poseidon.

Back a few hundred years ago, I pretended to be a Catholic priest and brought the Inquisition to Spain. That sucked. So, what we pretend to be isn’t always for the better. And, of course, Hannibal thought I was only pretending to be a demon. Even when we aren’t pretending, we are.

I spent enough time in the theatre back in Greece and following Alexander that I got used to playing a part. I kind of regretted that I hadn’t trod the boards with Shakespeare, but by that time, I was already in the New World. Regardless, I have often pretended to be something other than what I was. Am. Whatever.

There was this time in Japan ... Now, that’s worth telling about.

It must have been near the end of the first millennium after Caesar or so—not long before I presented myself to the prince in Nihon and built a wooden temple. I was just exploring the many islands that make up the Japanese archipelago. At one island, I found a village that was beset by bandits and forced to pay a heavy tax each year that kept the people of the village in poverty and near starvation. When I heard of the place, I dressed in the robes of a wandering Samurai, complete with two excellent swords I had purchased and duplicated. I missed having either Ninra’s sword or Odysseus’ sword. I approached the village.

The elders came out to meet me and plead with me to pass their village by as they had nothing that was not required by the bandits.

“How many bandits beset you?” I asked.

“Honored sensei, there are forty thieves and they keep dozens of slaves, including women to satisfy their lust.”

That set poorly with me. Women being kept as sex slaves? Not on my watch.

I retreated from the village and opened a gateway from which I summoned my harem to bring food enough for all the village. I selected six to dress as I did and gave them swords. They were, of course, all highly trained in martial arts since our time in India.

I led the procession into the village, beating on a gong to call all the countryside in for the feast. People were wary. They were more afraid that word of the great feast would spread to the bandits and they would be punished. The vision of the seven Samurai standing at the edge of the village to protect them, and the dozen beautiful women who served them soon calmed their fears and the feast was on.

As expected, the bandits showed up on horseback and attempted to ride us down without even asking what was going on. Let us say simply that none of the bandits remained on the horses that galloped into town and were corralled by my women.

“Samurai? What business have you here? This is our island! Go back to where you came from or face your deaths!”

That was pretty brave talk for a man who had only half his band still standing. Nonetheless, they attacked and we spared only one to lead us back to their camp, so we could free the slaves and women. The place was the size of the village.

When we brought the freed slaves back to the village, would you believe the villagers we had just fed pretended they didn’t have enough resources to feed and care for the former captives?—even though most had been taken from their village!

Well, there’s no forcing people into a community that doesn’t want them. I’d seen evidence of that repeated over the centuries. I pretended to be a simple wandering Samurai and the village pretended to be starving. I led the newly freed people back to the camp where the bandits had enslaved them. There was really nothing wrong with the camp. It was pretty much a village in itself. The land around it was fertile and there were even crops that had been planted by the slaves to supplement what was stolen from the village.

“Now, you don’t need to stay here if you think you have someplace else to go,” I told them. “I did not bring you back here to make you slaves again. But whoever stays and works will not want for any needed thing. This valley is rich and will provide for you. Your labor is now for yourself.”

They weren’t exactly sure how I was different from the bandits. The next day, my six other Samurai and I began building a gate for the village. We went out hunting in the mountains and brought back wild goats and other animals we could domesticate and built a pen for them. We tended the rice paddies and pruned the plum trees. Each night we fed those who had worked beside us. We did not feed anyone who did not work. Some begged us but we refused. There was a simple way to be fed and that was to work. Within a week, nearly everyone was working.

A couple of warped individuals attempted to raid the stores of food, but they were met with the sharp point of my Samurai’s swords. One fled and took news of what we were doing to the village that had been beset by the bandits in the first place. The other wandered off into the hills and we never saw him again.

We stayed with our new village for several weeks. One of the things they noticed was that whoever was out working would find another person working beside him or her. These people were from the infinity room and took pleasure in helping those who helped themselves. It was a rule of the infinity room and was uniformly obeyed. Work for the betterment of our people and receive everything you needed to live a comfortable and fulfilling life. But at night and meal time, none of the helpers would be seen. The people came to believe the kami—Shinto spirits who had once been ancestors—were blessing them. My people pretended they really didn’t exist. They never spoke and never touched a member of our new village.

By time to harvest, our village brought in more food than they could consume. And so, on their own, they decided to take food to the village that had been beset by the bandits. They did not say anything, having learned from my women. Instead, they slipped in at night and simply left sacks of rice and butchered meat. Then they silently slipped away.

I could have predicted the response of the original village based on the response of greedy people I’d known for three millennia. And nearly all the people I’d known for three millennia had been greedy. They armed themselves and came to take what they wanted from our village. They found the seven Samurai waiting for them at the village gate.

“Do you think, having seen what we did to the bandits, that you can become bandits yourselves? These people work for their food and they prosper. If you go back to your village and work for your food, you, too, will prosper. Do not think that you can become bandits and take what is not yours. The kami protect this village.”

As if they emerged from me—actually just from a gateway I’d opened behind me—dozens of my women came out dressed in flowing white gowns and simply pointed at the invaders, gesturing them to return home.