Chapter 54: We Refuse

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you are all still here,” I said, looking around at the crew, lying with each other in the family room as we finished the episode on TV. During this last week of the contest, everyone had become more casual about being dressed or not. Even Peninnah was running around in a bra and panties. And a garter and stockings with five-inch stilettos. She also had Karla on her lap and the pilot was wearing considerably less. Liz, of course, had never worn a bra after our first meeting, so she was comfortably lounging topless with Suhani, our software engineer from India. It seemed each of my women had found a favorite among the crew. Deedee was cuddled comfortably in my lap without a stitch on as I absently stroked her lovely full breasts.

I should tell you more about Deedee. There was never a question from the moment of her audition about her ultimately becoming a member of my crew and one of my favored concubines. It had been cemented in my mind just a few nights ago as I was visited in a dream, while still resting in the glow of a most satisfying copulation with the busty blonde.

“I see you are enjoying my little gift to you,” the voice said. I saw a subtle transformation come over Deedee and I was looking into the eyes of My Lady Goddess Aphrodite, smiling at me. I thought Deedee looked familiar!

“Goddess, is it you that lies here in my arms?” I asked.

“No, love. I have ascended to Olympus and am no longer among the people of earth except in an occasional erotic dream. But the morsel in your arms has been blessed by me to bring you joy and comfort for all your days.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve put a compulsion on her. You know I can’t abide slavery,” I said sternly.

“No, lover. No such thing. Even in the modern world there are occasionally people who worship one of the old gods. Dear little Deedee was one of those who held me in high esteem and even occasionally whispered a little prayer to me. Often when she was in the throes of ecstasy. In her prayer, she asked me to show her the one who would make her happy for all her life. I showed her an image of you—with me—on a ship in the sea where we made love day and night.”

“As I recall, we only made love after Poseidon’s storm washed us ashore,” I ventured.

“It made for a better story to have us washed overboard as we cried out our passion. Don’t spoil it.”

“Yes, My Lady Goddess.”

“When Deedee saw the scene, she immediately cried out, ‘Him! Him! Goddess make him mine!’ I had to explain that it would be a shared ownership, but she was all right with that. So, I gave her my blessing and guided her to your auditions. My gift to you.”

“Thank you, My Lady. She is a treasure.”

“Make love to me, my handsome demon. While she still dreams of my presence, make love to me.”

And so we did. At some point, the dream faded and it was all Deedee and me, but it was blessed with incredible satisfaction.

When I created the infinity room, I had no idea how it worked. I have little more idea today. The most learned physicists in Areola—which I grant you are not rocket scientists—have no idea. They hold that concepts abandoned centuries ago in the natural world are still operational in Areola. What I know is that once a concept is planted there, it takes root and grows. Like our power grid. Well, that was more than a concept. I adapted the idea of ley lines as being sources of physical power rather than of metaphysical power and let them grow underground. But I moved Pinaruti’s magic room into the infinity room. I couldn’t move the walls and shelves, but the physical objects I could move seemed to build the walls around them. As Nimia—my most trusted companion in my life—picked up an object to put away, the place for that object appeared.

Growth was slow at first. I brought food supplies into the room so Nimia and Portia could survive there, and those supplies never ran out. It was as if the existence of a container for wheat implied wheat in the container. It was simply always there. Of course, when we scattered wheat on the barren ground, it took root and grew. When we brought cattle into the room, they found rich grasses on which to graze. The existence of an oven, implied heat with which to cook. The oven came with the house. The heat came with the oven. I arrived at the conclusion that the existence of a thing implied the environment it needed to flourish. That implied environment then took shape.

When I cleansed and blessed the priestesses, they needed a temple. Now, like in any given city, people tended to cluster around the area of greatest resources so, in addition to my palace and the libraries, other houses had grown up around the pool. But when the temple was needed, it was as if the land in front of the pool stretched out to make room for the temple. I have to say, the temple is modest, even compared to some of those I’ve built. But it has everything it needs for fifty-two priestesses to live and worship and make love to The Bob.

I have not visited a vast number of otherworldly realms, but I have been privileged to be summoned to Olympus when Zeus invited me to move there. I noticed that his realm seemed to work much the same as mine. When Zeus needed a table, one appeared where he wanted it. When he wanted food, it was brought. When he wanted his dick sucked, some succubus or other came to suck it.

In Areola, even my bedroom was always the right size for the number of us who wanted to be there. The bed, always comfortable for an orgy or an intimate affair. The sailors had water and fair winds. The hunters had game. The planters had fields and crops.

I sometimes also thought that the existence of a thing created a need for it. For example, the creation of the power grid led to the need for power to run entertainment and communications. I’d always avoided laying out a network of roads, as I thought that might create a need for cars—and, while mine were kept in a secret storage room against some time that I might want to get out and drive—I didn’t think rapid transportation would be a great benefit to my world.

The big problem was in how I was going to explain Areola to the final crew and get them all to join me there. When I took Nimia and Portia and the three statues into the infinity room as I fled, I didn’t really give them much choice. Get in or leave. Later, Portia, Saris, Celeah and Bileah all chose lives outside the infinity room rather than staying there. I collected—or Nimia collected—a few other women for company in Bathra and it was not long after I left Bathra that I collected Josie. Back in those days, the concept of carrying around an infinite paradise in a satchel was easier for people to accept. It was a big world and anything might be possible.

This twenty-first century world was much smaller and fewer things seemed possible. The very existence of our reality television show was evidence that even our plans to escape the confines of earth were not considered really possible by most of the populace. I wondered—and not for the first time—if I would have had better luck just collecting women directly into Areola and going to Nepal to build my own space ship, ignoring physics, and simply making it what it needed to be.

“The time has come,” I said as we gathered in our pajamas after watching the first episode. I use the term ‘pajamas’ loosely, which was the way most of the scraps of fabric hung on our cast and crew. I saw various members hanging onto each other more tightly than the clothing clung to them. “I really, really hate this part, so I’m going to put a question to you. There are seven of you left in the competition to become the crew of Space Pioneer 1. We need only six. Does one of you volunteer to be left behind?”

I thought I saw Valerie make a move like she would volunteer, but she was pulled into a clutch by the other contestants. There was a subtle shifting of positions and I realized all seven of the girls were in a tight cluster. Sociologist Deedee, Software engineer Suhani, racecar driver Julie, chef Valerie, pilot Karla, policewoman Lalonda, and doctor Marie. I sighed.

“Well, then we have to do it the hard way. I have seven cards and pens. I’ll give each of you one. On it, I want you to write the name of the person you think should be eliminated in this challenge. The decision is yours.” I handed the girls the pens and cards and directed them to different parts of the room to write their choice in secret. I motioned to Liz to collect the ballots in a box and bring them to me for counting. I thought she wore a rather self-satisfied smirk and couldn’t figure out what she was so pleased with.

She collected the cards in the ballot box and brought the box to me. Then she went to join the seven girls, along with Penelope, Peninnah, Dezi, and Laine. I took the box to my desk and sat down to tally the count. I pulled out ballot after ballot and looked at them, puzzled. I turned each one over and looked up at the girls, family, camerawomen, and the few others who had come for the ceremony.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. You were supposed to write the name of the one you’d eliminate on the card. These cards are all blank. We’ll have to do it again.”

The seven women stood and approached my desk. I admit I felt a little worried.

Back long before my time—in fact, near the beginning of Zeus’s reign on Olympus—there were seven sisters, the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. They were said to be among the most beautiful and fearsome in all creation. They represented the mother, the maiden, the queen, the huntress, the sage, the mystic, and the lover. It was never agreed upon which was which and they may have shifted in their roles as women are likely to do.

It happened that a hunter named Orion came upon them as they walked through the Boeotian countryside and decided they should be his harem. They fled and prayed to Zeus to deliver them. After seven years, Zeus heard their prayer and placed them among the stars—the seven sisters, or Pleiades.

I had a feeling the seven sisters had just come to face me.

“We refuse,” Deedee said firmly.

“We will not vote to eliminate one of our sisters from the crew,” Suhani declared.

“And if you decide to send any one of us away,” Julie added, “we all go.”

I had expected them to be reluctant, but wasn’t prepared for an outright rebellion. This was going to be a hell of a conclusion to the mini-series. I did my best to face them, but to look any one of them in the eyes was to invite the tears to flow. In fact, the tears were flowing from all of us. The five in my family, Doug and Paul, the camerawomen, even Zhi and Josie, who had come for the big reveal, were standing around the seven women facing me.

“And that’s your final decision?” I asked as if I were offering a million dollars to the winner.

“We’re sorry it puts you in a difficult position, Bob,” Valerie said. “But we’ve already lost six women we loved. You wanted to do more than winnow down the number for the show. You wanted to build a crew that would love each other, work together, defend each other and the family. You just got one more than you planned.”

“Then I’m going to give you one more chance,” I said. “And it’s not what you think.”

I motioned everyone to resume their seats. This big reveal was going to shock people, and I wasn’t sure we’d leave it all in the final episode. Some things the general public just wasn’t ready for. I stepped out from around my desk and started removing what little clothing I was wearing. Deedee had gotten me charged up while we watched the episode and I wasn’t down to size yet.

“I’ve not been quite honest with you all,” I said. “I am not quite human.”