Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
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.”
“He’s an alien!” Lalonda gasped. “I knew it!”
“Um… not exactly an alien in terms of being from another planet, but not of this world, nonetheless.” I began the transformation to my demon self, trying to go slow so they could get used to each bit as it was revealed, and so the cameras could catch and record it all.
“Horns!”
“Oh, my god! I thought his cock was huge before. I have to have some of that!”
“And look at those hairy legs! I just want to pet him.”
That wasn’t going quite the way I anticipated. I expected some amount of horror. It was possible the pheromones or whatever I emitted were working overtime. I saw a few hands headed for pussies. Even among my women from Areola.
“I am, in general parlance, a demon. I wanted to show you this so you would know and understand that I’m not just kidding around.”
I saw Avril moving in to do a thorough close-up shot, examining me from my horns to my hooves, and every item of interest between. If they showed that on the air, it would certainly raise some comments. I started to transform back. There were a few protests, but I thought it was better to get this underway in a body more people could relate to.
“I have a gateway to another dimension in my possession. In that dimension, lies the world Areola. I want us to all go and live happily in Areola. So, you might ask, why do we bother with the whole matter of space travel? Why don’t we just go to this other paradise and skip the space travel? That’s a problem. As soon as this episode airs in five weeks, people are going to be all over us trying to get into Areola and capture the gateway. The alternate world is located inside my satchel. Don’t ask me how that works. I have no idea. I believe, however, if something happens to the satchel, it will or could destroy Areola. That’s why I’ve spent the last 4,000 years moving around and hiding to protect the gateway and the satchel.”
“I get it,” Karla said. “So, if we fly off to Mars, you should find a place to hide the satchel that humans wouldn’t discover for a thousand years.”
“That’s pretty much it. By then, maybe I’ll have another solution. But here’s the thing, ladies. If you enter through the gateway to Areola, the likelihood is that you will never see earth again. So, I’m going to give you one more opportunity to back out. Think about it carefully and we’ll make the commitment tomorrow night. Got it?” I asked.
They all nodded and I could see each of the ladies, including Avril, converging on the family and the camerawomen from Areola to question them about the infinity room and how long they’d lived there. I saw some wide eyes when my wives and possessions told them how old they were.
“I see the sense in making that demonstration to the girls, but we need to put off the whole demon/alternate dimension thing as far as the show is concerned,” Doug said. “What you did with the other girls is good. We’ll just pass the word that when the big announcement comes, it will be a transporter to your palace in an undisclosed location. Work for you?”
“That works, as far as I’m concerned. You really plan to take this into another full season?” I asked. I was getting just a little tired of the whole TV show dynamic. I think the girls were, too. And I’d already exposed the truth to them.
“It’s about the technology, Bob.”
“What about the technology?”
“Things take longer than they do. We might not make the flight date.”
“We’ve already started airing the series!”
“Difference between real reality and reality TV. We could be as much as a year away from an effective launch date. In that length of time, the whole world could change. We’re going to need another season of the competition. Plus, we’ll have to up the stakes. The idea of ‘once off the show, you’re gone,’ is blown with this episode. In fact, we have the first transporter to your secret palace in the second episode next Friday,” Doug said. “We can do some planning before then, but it will be tense. We’ll have to come out with the second season in about three or four months.”
“Fuck. I really thought we were on our way.”
“Don’t let on to the girls about that until we’re safely away in the secret palace. They might have something to say about it that we don’t want heard.”
“Okay. I’ll leave the prep up to you.”
I was never that good at deception. I won’t say I’ve never lied. I mean, theatre is just one big lie that people buy into for a couple of hours and then go back to their mundane lives. It’s all escapist entertainment.
There was one time—this was back in Italy before I met Esmira—when we had some special entertainment that was all escapist. I’d been working on a moderately-sized church and the work had been extremely hard because the building location was on a steep slope. Hauling the stone from the quarry to the building site was backbreaking labor, even when I subtly lightened the weight of the stone. It couldn’t become too light or it would raise suspicion, but I had sympathy for the mules—both animal and human.
The church was finished and a bishop or some mucky-muck from the church was coming to town to consecrate it, a ceremony that would be followed by forty days of fasting and no meat in remembrance of some fast that took place back in Issa’s time. Everyone was tired and bemoaning the restrictions to come as we cleaned and tidied the building before the big ceremony. That was when one of the laborers in the church found the scepter and vestments the bishop would use.
“Look at me! I’m his lordship the fucking bishop and I command you all to come and kiss the ring on my dick,” the fool called out. Well, the little act soon got out of hand when another fellow found the wine intended for consecration during the service. What they ever thought they would need a full cask of wine for when they only blessed a cup at a time, was a mystery, but the crew soon made a significant dent in the amount to be made holy.
We had quite the party, with a couple of foremen designated to be choirboys and getting fucked in the ass by the pretend priests. Everyone had donned hastily improvised masks so no one knew who the guilty parties were. But no one liked the foremen anyway. Food began arriving at the church as wives and sisters got word of the revels. They all brought meat since none would be allowed for the next forty days and no one wanted their stores to spoil. Of course, there were a number of women who pretended to be other men’s wives. It seemed there was a common consent that nothing that happened at this holy party counted and would not be remembered the next day.
A couple of favorite Bible stories were acted out, including Daniel in the fiery furnace, which almost got a fire out of control in the sanctuary. I didn’t have the heart to tell them they had the story all wrong. In all, though the acting sucked and the main purpose was drunkenness, it was a moment of escape as Meshack, Shadrack, and Abednego were played out to be the bishop and two priests cast into the fires. Sometime late in the night, people stumbled home and I looked at the detritus of food and ashes in the church. I knew it wouldn’t do to have the bishop see this, so I called out a couple dozen of my harem and together we scrubbed the church clean and made sure the bishop’s vestments were all neat and tidy.
The next day, of course, life went back to normal, which meant misery and deprivation, but for a night, there had been an escape from life as they knew it.
Where did this start? Oh, yes. Deception. I was going to lie to the girls. Had been lying, apparently. There was no ship ready for us to board and take off in.
“I’ve not been completely honest with you all. I have a bit of technology that I’ve been saving for this very moment. I have a transporter. It has a terminus at a secret location where I have, not only a palace, but a whole community of people I intend to take with me on our trip to Mars. Of course, the ship will only hold so many, so I’ll be taking a transporter terminus with us and as soon as we arrive and are set up, I’ll be transporting the entire colony to us,” I said.
The girls oohed and ahhed appropriately as if this was all news to them.
“Now, you must make your decision. We have to wait for the ship to be ready, which will be after the mini-series has aired.” I didn’t say how long after. “So, today is your chance to bug out. If you don’t really want to say goodbye to earth, there’s the door. Beside it is the transporter to my palace. Family, please demonstrate. We’ll see you on the other side.”
My wives and possessions and concubines all filed through the portal and disappeared. All that was left was cast and crew.
“Deedee. What will it be? The wide world you’ve known all your life? Or the transporter to a colony that will one day soon move to outer space and never come back to earth? It’s your choice.”
She went around the room kissing all the girls, the camerawomen and finally me. Then she faced the portal.
“To infinity and beyond!” she announced and walked through.
One by one as I called them, the girls stood, kissed those remaining and gave a toast before walking through the portal.
“One small step for woman!”
“We do not take a trip. A trip takes us.”
“We only live once, but if we do it right, once is enough.”
“Don’t die with dreams in your pocket!”
“A journey of a thousand years, begins with a single step.”
It would make good TV.
“Julie, I’m afraid that leaves you.” The gateway began to fade.
“No! Don’t leave me, Bob. I’ll do anything for you. Please don’t leave me behind!”
“What about Paul?” I asked. The young physics genius stepped forward. Julie was openly crying.
“Whatever you say,” she whimpered. She took Paul’s hand and kissed him. “I’m sorry, lover.”
“How could you make any other choice?” he said softly.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you two. Would you just decide which door the two of you are using and go?” I said, laughing.
They both looked at me and then at each other. They didn’t even bother kissing the rest of us. They held hands and rushed through the still-open gateway, shouting, “To boldly go!”
I motioned our camerawomen and techs through until only Doug and Avril were left in the room with me. I closed the gateway and shouldered my bag.
“Bob, are you really leaving us?”
“I need you out here, Doug. We’re going to have to switch identities for a while.”
“What?”
“I need you to be me and go to Japan to the penthouse. Once you get there, you can become Doug again and join me. I’ll let you know where. In the meantime, I’m going to masquerade as you so no one follows me as I get Areola to a safe place for a while. We’ll decide what comes next after the last episode airs.”
“Got it. Um… How do I become you?”
“It’s a pretty easy spell. Think of it as switching bodies. See? All done.”
Doug looked at me and then rushed to a mirror to look at himself. He looked like I had just moments before. He came back to Avril and me. She’d caught the whole transformation on video.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to inspect this body thoroughly while you’re wearing it, babe.” She kissed Doug, who looked like me. I waved to them and they headed to the waiting limo. I went around the house and locked all the doors.
Then I went to the garage and fired up my ’55 T-Bird, brought out of storage from the infinity room, complete with Virginia in the passenger seat. No one even noticed us leave.
End of Volume II
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