Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
Part IX
What’s So Real About Reality?
41
Integrating the Household
I SHOULD SAY a little about how the infinity room had developed over the past 4,000 years. You’d think that with the different eras and cultures represented there, it would either be a total mishmash of people, or it would be a divided land with people constantly at war. It was neither. There were various areas where people with similar heritage dwelled together. For example, no one was really sure where the Bobbobbob Aboriginals had migrated to. They’d never mixed in with the other cultures. Racially, there seemed to be a pretty even number of black, red, yellow, and white. And there were many among the children and grandchildren who blended all four colors. Religion did not divide people because they soon discovered the old gods didn’t exist in the infinity room. I was as close to a god as the room had, and I encouraged people to keep rituals and customs that were meaningful to them and blend them into the practices of others. We had the height of religious and cultural appropriation. By the 2020s, there were well over three million people in the infinity room. No one knew how far over.
It might surprise you to find that we were pretty low-tech in the infinity room. Oh, technology wasn’t absent entirely. Each age had its own technology and people who came into the infinity room from that age brought technology or tech knowledge with them. We had to figure out how to get television to work in the infinity room, for example. Anyone who arrived from the natural world after about 1950 expected some conveniences and entertainment. But when it comes down to it, technology is driven by war. With no religion, nationalities, borders, or resources to fight over, there was no real cause for major disputes. As a result, the weapons technology we had, for example, was only what we had found and needed when sojourning in the natural world.
“Bob,” Nimia said as we toured our little world, “We need a name. Most of our population has no idea what the infinity room is or what it means. The world needs a name so people can refer to it.”
“Oh, please, let’s not call it Bob’s World,” I pled.
“No. That, too, is meaningless to most people.”
“Well, take the idea to the family and see what they come up with. I’m happy with whatever you decide,” I said.
“Leaving your fate in the hands of others might have unexpected results one day, love. Be careful how much power you leave in our hands.”
Hmm. That was a warning I would need to consider.
Nimia, my first wife. Remember? She had been with me in Knossos when Ariane died. We both secretly wept for the woman who had claimed me on my first exposure to the world. She was justifiably the only person in the infinity room who could claim to be older than me by a few years, but she looked as young and fresh as the nineteen-year-old she’d been when I first opened the infinity room and pushed her and Portia into it. Portia had elected to stay with Bao and age with her and die with her. But Nimia stayed mostly in the infinity room. As my first wife, she was the de facto queen. If there was ever a dispute that arose in the world, Nimia heard it. She typically made the disputants settle between themselves. If they could not…
Let me see. A dispute arose among some of the librarians as to whether the world was round or flat. They meant, of course, the world of the infinity room, not the natural world. They were trying to equate the way things worked in the infinity room with the natural world.
“If you cannot settle this dispute and consider it so important that you must carry on arguing and upsetting the other librarians, then you are required to prove your theory,” Nimia said. “You will set out from the palace in opposite directions. If you never meet each other, the world is flat. If by some chance you do find one another, then we can assume the world is round. That is the judgment of Bob.”
“But, madam, in either instance, we must leave the library and be gone forever. Even if we meet, we might be unable to ever return,” said one of the disputants.
“Yes? So, what is your point?”
“We would be leaving everything we love behind,” said the other.
“Yes? So, what is your point?”
“It occurs to me that this might not be important enough to prove. I am willing to put aside the argument.”
“And I.”
“So be it. Do not let me hear of the two of you arguing about this again, nor do I wish to hear of parties being formed that support one view or the other. Now go in peace,” Nimia said. Dispute settled.
Josie had the second most seniority in my household, but she was not counted as a wife. I possessed her—body, soul, heart, and mind. Josie managed my desires. She always knew what I needed or wanted. She was as quick to organize an orgy as a war party. I wanted every person in the infinity room trained in the martial arts and in the tantric sex practices. Josie orchestrated our education program. I wanted the priestesses cared for; Josie saw to it that they received anything they needed. Josie was my go-to girl and right-hand woman.
After masquerading as Odysseus for a decade, I returned to his home and his wife Penelope insisted that she was therefore my wife. I had no objection to this at all. While Penelope was a bit older than the other girls when she entered the infinity room, she was still young and beautiful. In fact, she seemed to have moved back in age to be closer to my other wives and possessions. Penelope was the mistress of trade, both within the infinity room and between the infinity room and the natural world. She kept track of what was needed, what was available for trade, and who could best fill the needs.
My next possession was Pari, a Persian girl given to me from Nebuchadnezzar’s harem. She too had responsibilities, managing my harem. No matter how hard I tried, I could not sleep with all of them every night. Not and do more than sleep. Someone had to determine whose turn it was to share the bed with my wives and possessions. Pari was the one.
Lakshmi was my third wife in the infinity room. She had the most experience among all my women in being a man. She’d been a man for the better part of the twenty years I’d been a woman. She was a wonderful relationship counselor and traveled around the infinity room a lot, teaching tantric meditation and relationship resolution. She’d become quite a guru.
And then there was Princess Agora. She was the daughter of an island ruler who thought his island was the entire world. She had gone into shock when she discovered how vast the world really was. Hers was the only possession I’d made without her consent. She was catatonic and far beyond consenting to anything. I brought her out of that state by possessing her and gave her a calm mind. She still did not stray from my house, which had become quite a palace over the millennia. I could almost always find her in my bedroom, fussing about things that didn’t need to be fussed about, like smoothing the sheets on the bed or dusting corners of the room where dust never collected. I’d once tried to set her free, but she clung to me and begged me to continue possessing her. I swore, however, that I would never again possess someone without their explicit invitation.
Esmeralda was my fourth wife and was the only one with whom I had endured a ‘Christian’ ceremony. I disguised myself as a young Spaniard and we went to a priest to be declared husband and wife. Then we’d slipped off into the mountains for a honeymoon. Esmeralda did not return to the natural world after that except on rare occasions when she wanted to see what had happened or to tend to one of my businesses. She and her husband simply disappeared as I returned to the shape of the despised priest of the inquisition.
Maya was as strong-willed as the goddess she had represented when we met. Her Mayan Indian features were distinctive among my wives, and her attitude was unrelenting in support for me. When we’d brought Mayan refugees into the infinity room, she had taken charge of their adjustment to the new life and surroundings. That was a role she continued to fill with new additions to the infinity room for the next five centuries.
And then there was Liz, my fifth—and I believed final—possession. She was an independent women’s liberationist of the sixties and seventies. She began writing books on feminism, women’s bodies, and twentieth century relationships, which she published up through the mid-1980s, when her parents died. She chose that time to quietly slip into the infinity room and fade out of her public life. Even her parents had begun to suspect something with her not aging past her twenty-two years in the seventeen years we’d been together. There had been a few instances in which she had made guest appearances on television talk shows, but we had to transform her for those appearances so it would look like she was getting older. I assumed that eventually, we’d need to stage her death because just fading away didn’t work in this day and age.
Oh, I had also collected Zhi during the Chinese exploration era. I did not count her among my wives or possessions. She had a position all her own as a devotee of Bob. I won’t say she worshiped me, but she was dedicated to the service of Bob and all that was his. She was the chief trainer of the martial arts and traveled throughout the infinity room to teach younger men and women born in the room how to meditate and transcend themselves through the martial arts.
And into this mix I brought my newest wife, Peninnah. She was a financial genius and manipulated my wealth in the natural world in such a way that we always had plenty for any project we wanted. We could also disappear and all my wealth would be absorbed by the populace without upsetting any economy in a major way.
Peninnah had no difficulty adjusting to life with my wives and possessions. She was definitely junior to all of them, but was accepted and honored as my primary wife in the new age. She had moved into the infinity room the day after we were married and came out during the daytime when there was work to be done. She was even accepting and tolerant of my nearly 100 concubines, collected over the years. Some of them neared Zhi in their devotion to Bob, like Chione, who might have asked me to make her a possession if she’d had a voice. She was Egyptian, given to me by Nebuchadnezzar, and followed Pari around like a shadow. And some of the concubines were very independent, even having their own lovers and in many cases, families, but always available to the Bob.
I remind you that in addition to these, I had been married many times, but those other wives had not entered the infinity room to live with me forever. Ariane, of course, was my first wife, blessed in our union by Zeus, but she died trying to deliver the monster child I’d spawned on her. Bao was my wife in Bathra, blessed by Ninra and Namri as we stood in the temple on behalf of the god and goddess. Portia, who I took from Drakomaxos in Knossos, chose to stay in the natural world with Bao and died soon after she did. I married Miriam in Israel and was with her until I was summoned to the king’s harem. Then there was Delphia in Greece, Cordelia in Rome, and delightful Tiona, a girl among the Britons I married long before my time there with Caesar. Remind me to tell you about her later. Regardless, these were all women who did not enter the infinity room. Most of them aged and died and I mourned them.
And then there were the fifty-two priestesses of Bob who dwelled in my temple.
Peninnah, I was thankful, got along with everyone. Her comment was, “Of course, a demon with balls like Bob’s would need a lot of women. I couldn’t possibly satisfy him alone.” She had even talked her secretary, Ariah, into entering the infinity room as one of my concubines, and the three of us had some memorable times in bed together. Peninnah grew to love them all.
Except the priestesses.
The priestesses of Bob were a unique group. They were all women and girls we had rescued from various pirate ships. They had been in such a traumatized state that most of them simply cowered in a corner. One had attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself overboard in the middle of the ocean. It had been my rescue of that poor girl that had been the foundation of the priestesses of Bob. She spread the word that I was not a man, but a god. The others prayed to Bob to save them and make them clean. What could I do? I showed up in my full demon form, claimed them as my priestesses, and took them to the pool to be purified. I blessed them and they worshiped me.
I mean that literally. They worshiped me.
And there was a sign when a priestess was accepted and purified. I promise I did not initiate this intentionally. When each priestess had been baptized by Bob, she began to glow. It was the kind of inner light artists since the renaissance have been trying to capture on canvas. I blame it on the infinity room. It must have made them glow when they were purified. And each time we rescued more girls from pirates, they went through the process of indoctrination by the priestesses and when I purified them, they began to glow. At last, there were fifty-two devoted priestesses in the Temple of Bob.
No men were ever allowed in the Temple of Bob. A priestess would stand at the door of the temple, flanked by guards from among my concubines, hand selected by Josie for the duty. It was a great honor. The priestess on the steps would hear the petitions of any men or women who came to the temple. In many instances—perhaps most—the priestess would tell the person to take his case to Nimia for justice to be served. She did not hear complaints of one man against another, nor foolish requests for wealth in a land that was overflowing with wealth. What they heard were petitions for forgiveness, for guidance in a relationship, and for blessings on their families.
Once a month, on the day set by the priestesses… Let me clarify. The term ‘month’ had no meaning in the infinity room. Time was not cyclical. It simple continued. If you asked a citizen of the infinity room how long they had been there, chances are the response would simply be, “I am here.” But I referred to the summoning of the priestesses according to their own internal clocks, as ‘that time of month.’
When they summoned my presence, I had to show up in full demon form. If I was in the form of a man, I would not be distinguished from any other man and would be barred from the temple. And, of course, full demon form meant I was nude—as nude as the priestesses who met me to bathe in the temple pool with them. We frolicked in the pool and laughed. There was much touching and teasing among us. I tried to make sure that every priestess got at least one orgasm, and they helped by ministering to each other, as well as waiting for their opportunity with me.
But bathing and touching was only the beginning of the ritual they developed to please me. Once we had bathed, they led me into the temple to a bed positioned on a platform beneath a dome, like an altar. On this bed, they continued to touch me and oil my body until it shone and the goat hairs were brushed to a glossy sheen. Then a priestess would step up on the bed with me. She was the one chosen to receive Bob’s blessing on behalf of all of them. With fifty-one other priestesses surrounding us, I made love to the chosen priestess. Since lovemaking was an act of worship for the priestess, I strove to make it as desirable an experience as possible. As much as she worshiped me, I worshiped her. I made sure she had experienced orgasms from every part of her body I touched.
And when my cock pressed into her sex, there was a great sigh of acceptance among all the priestesses. The glow of the chosen one outshone all the gathered worshipers. And when I finally came and loosed my semen into her waiting pussy, the climax was shared by all and so great that the chosen one and all the surrounding priestesses collapsed in unconsciousness. Until the next summoning, the chosen priestess was treated as if she were my goddess consort. Her fellow priestesses fed her, massaged her, and serviced her in any way she desired or they could think of. When time for a summoning rolled around again a different priestess was chosen and we repeated the process.
This was what made it so difficult for Peninnah to accept the priestesses. It was not possible, in her mind, to compete with fifty-two beautiful young women who worshiped me as their god.
“Bob-san, we are honored with your interest,” our host said. Peninnah knew and understood the cultures of our world well and did not push herself into the conversation, even though any deals I made in Japan would be guided by her. My Japanese hosts, however, could scarcely take their eyes off her svelte form. In her heels, she towered above most of the men. Her blonde hair was like a beacon, drawing attention from every direction. And her exposed belly was in constant competition with her breasts for the most attention-getting body part ever.
I don’t think I mentioned the piercing. This was in the 2020s, so ear-piercing was common. Other body parts were also often pierced. I once slept with a woman who had her clitoris pierced and loved to have me tug on the post with my teeth. Women were also frequently tattooed. Peninnah had no tattoos, but she did have her navel pierced and wore a diamond in it that was bigger by twice than most women’s engagement rings. Since she normally wore a short top and low-cut bottom, the sparkling jewel was a real eye-catcher. Not that Peninnah’s belly needed any help catching the eye. But still, there it was.
When she was feeling particularly evil and wanted to throw men off their game, she attached a chain to the diamond and dropped the chain into her skirt. I almost said underwear, but Peninnah seldom wore underwear unless the skirt was so short she was likely to be exposed. Men would spend an entire two-hour meeting fantasizing about where the other end of the chain went. Those were some productive meetings for us.
In this particular meeting, she stayed near me, often draped lovingly on my shoulder, and whispered advice as I negotiated a billion-dollar (¥115 billion) investment in a new resort that would push out into the ocean and attract wealthy patrons in the way the Arabs did in Dubai. We used our Emirates passports to gain entry to Japan, and the executives of this company willingly took our meeting. They listened intently as I talked about adding a 100-story exclusive tower to the resort, of which I intended to own the top floor penthouse as my own residence in Japan. I was still a pretty good architect, though I did not tell our hosts that I had built the oldest wooden temple in their nation.
“Our desire is for the greater honor of Japan,” I said. “For too long the princes of the desert have lived a life of ease and decadence that is emulated in every direction. This resort will bring the same prestige to Japan. We believe your company is the right one to build this endeavor and would support it through our investment. You merely need to capture the contract and you will know you have the funding to pursue the endeavor.”
As it happened, there were several development companies that wanted the rights to develop this piece of property. The battle had been heated. We’d done our research and chose a company in the competition that was not the largest, but seemed to be above reproach when it came to business ethics.
The battle heated up as it became known that this company had our backing. At first, it was all negotiation and innuendo. The competitors suggested the company we had chosen was not capable of developing such a large project. Then they suggested the company would be unable to get workers or materials.
Peninnah had been busy and had already purchased majority shares in the companies that would supply us under the names of different shell companies we owned. Of course, if they intimidated workers and we were unable to hire, that would be bad, so Peninnah came up with a strategy of enlisting the competitors as subcontractors for various parts of the massive development. I could see even before the contracts were let, the cost overruns would be in the vicinity of three times the original investment.
But money was not my concern. I wanted the company I’d chosen because they had a majority stake in an aerospace supplier that I had already chosen as the most likely to supply Space Pioneers with critical parts. My partners in the space exploration company were worried about the supplier being faithful in manufacturing the parts we needed. Peninnah’s strategy was to offer to buy the aerospace company from our Japanese partners when they came back for more money.
I was not counting on the competition escalating to physical threats and violence. My bad.
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