Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
57
Season Two
“HERE’S THE CONCEPT, BOB. Listen, you’re going to love it,” Doug said.
My friend and producer had finally come to reside in Areola with his girlfriend, our camerawoman Avril, at the end of the last mini-series. We’d traded bodies when we wrapped up the shooting for the season and he went to Japan while I went to a remote island I first encountered soon after the first millennium AC. Peninnah had acquired a nice little estate for us there and it had been pretty easy to change identities and fly with Virginia from Los Angeles. Virginia had met me at the mansion after the last day of shooting with my Thunderbird and we simply drove away. When it was safe, we drove it into the satchel and put it away. Easy.
But the final episode was getting ready to air and we had to start thinking about a second season since our rocket wasn’t ready to fly. Fine. Go ahead and make sure it’s safe. We can wait.
“Tell me.”
“Season Two: The Harem Hunter. We’re still under the umbrella of To Boldly Go, but the season has its own focus. By now, people know you haven’t really eliminated anyone. There’s no surprise to the show. So there needs to be a new twist. In this series, we follow Bob as he goes hunting for new members of the harem.”
“I don’t know, Doug. It seems like following my normal daily life will be strange. And what about all the women who wouldn’t get chosen. How do we get releases? It seems so complicated.”
“Stop whining, Bob. You’re going to get fresh willing pussy on every show. Look at this.” He hefted a banker’s box full of papers onto the table. “This is signed consent forms from over a thousand beautiful women, along with their pictures, history, addresses, and social media accounts. By the end of the first episode, we began receiving ‘applications’ for next season. I had the staff vet them and get releases from them signed in advance. These are the only ones that followed through on their applications. Get that Bob? These 1,257 signed consent and release forms are the only ones who passed our initial review and signed on. That’s out of over 15,000 inquiries! You are a hot property and thousands of women out there want a piece of it.”
“You mean… 15,000 women responded to the show and asked to become a part of it?”
“Um… not only women. About two percent were men. It’s up to you, but I thought that would add an element of intrigue to an episode or two. Even if you don’t have sex with them, it wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more men in your harem. I mean, that’s a lot of pussy for just half a dozen guys to keep satisfied while you’re busy elsewhere.”
He was right. Over the years, I’d brought hundreds of men into the infinity room, in various capacities. Not the least of those capacities was satisfying the women who outnumbered them nearly a hundred to one. Half a dozen of the men had attached themselves to my harem and lived among my concubines. I counted Doug and the young physicist Paul among them. They could probably use a little help. I sure could.
“So, basically what you are saying is that I stalk these women and when I find one I want, I jump out and say, ‘Hi! I’m Bob, the Harem Hunter. Want to go to my world and fuck me for the rest of your life?’ And then we see if I get killed by her response.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll have backup for you. But it doesn’t need to be that much of a blunt statement. We’ll arrange an accidental meeting. She has a flat tire and this hunk of a guy—you—pulls over to help her. They talk and you invite her out. You romance her and get a real feel for her as to whether you want to make her part of the harem. Then, at a time of your choice, you reveal our hidden cameras and tell her you are the harem hunter and would like her to join your expedition. It will be great.”
“There are 1,257 applications. How do we decide who gets to be stalked?”
“Bob, this is part of the beauty of the program. You just took eleven beautiful women to Areola from the first season. They should become your review committee. Along with your wives, of course. We can shoot a ton of footage just of the selection process for the applications. That’s something we missed in the first season. We had a general cattle call for women and even then we had to go out and find referrals. This will take the place of the auditions. We can cut in the commentary from the first crew about the women during each episode as they analyze her looks, personality, sex drive, and likelihood of getting along with the others.”
“Wow! Okay. I haven’t heard any better suggestions. Liz?” I turned to my fifth possession who also acted as the manager of our little production.
“I think it will work, Bob. And it sounds like something the girls will have fun with. Let me work with them to get them in the mood. But first, you’ll have to make the announcement that the ship isn’t ready. You’ve kept that to yourself so far.”
“You’re right. I’d better go have a meeting with the crew.”
It wasn’t the first time I had to take bad news to my family and others about a delay. I’d had to explain that I would be staying in Egypt for a while because my ship had been burned along with the Library at Alexandria. Everyone was sad that my ship had been burned, but no one was particularly upset that we’d be staying in Egypt. Whether we were there for a day, a year, or a century, didn’t really make any difference in the infinity room. Don’t ask me how or why, but the only sign the residents had of time passing was if they happened to go into the natural world with me. At that time, they would become aware that there was a more modern ship, a different mode of dress, and a different language. But none of that really affected them.
This time, however, several of us had been involved in the mini-series production and were marking time until we could blast off from earth for our great escape. The contestants on the last mini-series had lived in the expectation that when the last episode aired, we would actually be boarding the ship.
That night, we watched the dramatic conclusion to the show when the girls all rebelled against the eliminations and demanded that I take all of them. Then I revealed a portal to my ‘other palace’ in a hidden location. It ended with each of the girls giving their toast to the future and going through the gateway.
“Well, what do you think of the show?” I asked.
“It was so much fun! Will blasting off into space be as much fun?” Deedee asked.
“That’s a good question, and it brings me to some matters that I need to discuss with you all. At the end of that episode, after everyone else was in Areola, Doug gave me some bad news. The construction of our ride is woefully behind schedule. It could be a year or more before we can actually board,” I said.
“Oh, bummer,” Julie said. “We’ll just have to stay here in Areola and lie in the sun for a year or so. I can handle that.”
That was the most serious expression of disappointment that the girls had.
“When you think about it, our intent was just to blast off and send some expression of excitement and farewell, then all come into the satchel to live here anyway. It’s like the schedule was just moved up a year or so and we’ve already reached our destination,” Karla said. “I don’t see a problem.”
“Good, good,” I said as I looked over to my wives. They were giggling. “Well, you can all become productive citizens of Areola, but I have to go back out into the cold cruel world and produce another season of the show, but with a new twist since we kind of shot our wad on the first season. I can’t exactly convince a new crop of contestants that they are going to be eliminated.”
“Aw. I’ll help,” Eun-ha said. “It would be fun to be on the other side of the cameras for a while.”
“Yeah, me, too!” they all chorused. This was going better than I expected.
“Okay. I’ve got a job for you and the family,” I said. “It would really be a big help.” I put the banker’s box in front of them. “There are 1,257 contestant resumes, photos, and release forms in this box. We need to consider which would be the most likely to make a good addition to our world and our crew so we can set up the season. I want them organized in groups of three that I will judge for one slot. That means you shouldn’t put all three of your favorites in one contest. Two would be eliminated. On the other hand, you might put someone very low on the list in a competition to make sure your favorite gets chosen. But I won’t know what your ranking is. I’ll assume that these three are all acceptable to you. It’s always possible I’ll choose someone other than your favorite.”
“What would cause you to do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Suppose her pussy tastes like honey and I get addicted.”
“More likely her pussy will taste like red wine if you’re going to get addicted,” Wendy giggled. The rest laughed and they started talking about how to go about making the choices and rankings. I excused myself.
Doug set some rules for their discussion. All the resumes had been assigned numbers and the group was admonished not to use any names, since the cameras would be running and we’d be taping segments of the discussion when I actually made contact. This was going to be interesting.
The wives and possessions joined the discussion and occasionally Zhi or a priestess would join in. The priestesses were pleased that we weren’t leaving yet. They wanted me to identify more kidnappers they could rid the world of. I thought that was a reasonable request.
Doug handled the publicity for season two, announcing that in the fall I would be hunting for new members for my harem from the 15,000 applications we had received so far. He was very blunt about what the contest would be and that not everyone I met with would even know they’d been taped for television. He invited those who had sent releases to contact us to withdraw if they no longer wanted to be considered.
I didn’t expect the result. We received another 15,000 applications. Doug’s staff took care of vetting the applications and determining if she should or shouldn’t be considered. Rejection letters went out to 10,000. The other 5,000 were sent a detailed rules book, release form, consent form, and asked to provide detailed information and a photograph. I’d been surprised from the first batch how many of the applications came back with full nudes attached.
Perhaps the first line screeners had become better at their jobs and perhaps there were just a different class of women who applied after having seen the entire first season broadcast. The result was nearly 2,000 more completed applications. They were put on hold until the girls had finished their first pass on the original apps. Then they started in again.
Back when I was with Hubilai Khaan—remember that? Around a thousand or twelve hundred years AC—I got to know the adventurer Marco Polo fairly well. In addition to the seven arts and general Christian and Greek philosophy, Marco brought a tale from Europe that I found intriguing and a little inspiring. I cannot verify its veracity, but this, to the best of my recollection, is the way he told the story.
“There are many who tell the tale of the Great Khaan Chinggis defeating the Christian monarch called Prester John. This was about six years before the Great Khaan’s death.”
I nodded. I had already departed from the camps of Chinggis before he went to war over an insult from the King of Persia. Or the king of a part of Persia. Or a general who claimed to represent a King of Persia. The only thing most of the reports agreed upon was that his name was John.
“Well, I listened to many people in the course of my journey from Italy to Xanadu. We were on the road for three years and within our company, we counted a few Nestorian Christians from India. Their tale was very different than that told in the North. They hold that the name Prester John was usurped from its rightful bearer, who was one of the grandchildren of the Magi who visited Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. That same Prester John is variously said to have been St. John the Apostle who was evacuated from the island of Patmos and went to visit the Apostle St. Thomas Didymus.”
“You’re saying that two of Issa’s disciples made their way to India to join Issa?” I asked. Marco was confused until I told him that in India Jesus was known as Issa or Yuz Asaf which means Son of Joseph. Marco was surprised that I possessed this knowledge and I encouraged him to continue his tale.
“Strangely, that would fit. Now this is not scriptural, but there is common belief that St. John, who became known as Prester John, was set to rule a secret Christian kingdom in the East and that he will one day emerge from that location to announce the second coming of our Lord, in the same fashion that John the Baptizer announced his first coming,” Marco said.
I remembered back to my meeting with John and being baptized by him, along with the satchel, which I counted as a baptism for all the residents of the infinity room. John had pointed me to Jesus and I really liked him. I’d thought I would set up a bit of a gig like John’s and baptize people to point them toward the teachings of Jesus. Then they killed John by severing his head. That freaked me out, if I may use a common contemporary term. I fled from Judea east and as I wandered heard first that Jesus had been killed, and then that he was alive. That confirmed my opinion that he was, indeed, the greatest demon who had ever lived. He joined me at the mouth of the great river and we sailed for some time together until I put him ashore near the mouth of the Indus. I’d tried to find him a couple of centuries later, but found only the tomb and many legends of the great healer and prophet.
“Many men have searched for this secret kingdom, which some claim is in the great wall of mountains called Himavan. All we really know—or suppose—is that this is a fantastic kingdom of peace and plenty, ruled over by the Christian King, Prester John, and that it is still there, but somehow made invisible to those who are unworthy.”
I advised Marco to stick to the official tale of Chinggis’ victory over Prester John at Tanduc, as that was part of the history of the Mongols. But I carried his words with me. Had I walked right past the Kingdom of Issa as I made my pilgrimage to find the Lama of Tibet? I thought about returning to the south and investigating, but it was better for me to turn east and set sail. I had been in China and the Mongolian Empire much too long.
Hubilai had built yet another city—Daidu—north of the remains of Zhongdu, a city Chinggis had besieged and leveled to the ground. From there, I traveled along the coast southward until I found a boat that I liked.
On the way, however, I witnessed an atrocity I was told was not uncommon in the coastal areas. It seemed that Korean and/or Japanese raiders held a high opinion of Chinese women and wanted to own one. No, they did not want to marry a Chinese woman, they had their own women for that. They wanted Chinese women just to fuck until they tired of them and then discard—that is, kill them.
The practice of raiding the mainland for sex slaves was established along the coastal waters for centuries, and continued centuries after I had left. I did not discover the extent of the horrors until long after I had left China.
I came across a village—even at this time, a coastal village could have several thousand inhabitants—that was beset by raiders. The men and women were defending their homes and families as raiders cut through the village killing people with their swords. When they came across a young girl they liked, they dragged her back to their boats.
There, along the beach, the men ‘tried out’ the women to be sure they only took the best. The rest were raped and then killed.
I was furious. I called Zhi from the infinity room and together we cut a swath through the raiders, putting all to death. We liberated some seventy young women. Many were in need of aid. Many more were dead. Zhi and my wives and possessions ministered to the girls and patched them up as well as we could before sending them home.
While we were still working to aid the wounded, girls began returning from the village. They had found their homes burned and their families dead. They begged me to save them once again. We took them to the infinity room and through a long process, integrated them into our female dominant society. We were inexperienced in dealing with so many refugees at one time. The priestesses of Aphrodite proved to be the greatest help as they had all fled together from Troy when I gave them the opportunity.
It was still a long slow process. The priestesses had offered their bodies to men as an act of worship for their goddess. The young Chinese women had their innocence ripped from them at the point of a sword. Let no one tell you that sex is just sex. The circumstances change lives. To this day, many of those young women live together in an isolated area where they quietly farm and go about their daily tasks. My wives and concubines, the priestesses of Aphrodite, and other women, visit them and over the years, most have forgotten the horror of that day in the thirteenth century. But an unfortunate side-effect of the infinity room is the meaninglessness of time. Should anyone mention the natural world or returning to the natural world, these women shake as if the horror had occurred just yesterday. All we can do is care for them.
Six centuries later, these were among the first recruited by my daughter Chin Li to join her as the Flying Sword. The girls took to the martial arts training and Li focused them on the slave traders in China. I believe the stories of the Flying Sword were part of the inspiration that turned my own priestesses into ninja warriors. Prior to that time—that is the last quarter of the nineteenth century—my priestesses had contented themselves with keeping the light of my temple lit. Then they heard the stories of Li and her cadre of female warriors who went from Hong Kong throughout China, ending many traders and most of the trade in slaves from China to the Americas. My priestesses became anti-slavery warriors.
I intended to tell the story of my journey from China to the South Seas. I told a bit of that story once before, but this is a lesson in magic gone somewhat awry. As if you hadn’t had enough lessons in that from my life.
I turned my little ship toward the southeast, easily outrunning three bandit ships that the former ship owner had sent after me. If I hadn’t paid him so much for the boat, he would probably not have assumed I had so much more that it was worth sending pirates after me, but that was a short chase and they fell back to their port.
I had no particular destination in mind, but figured I would head south and then back toward the west to find India and the islands I’d once found so pleasant. I saw an island in the distance, and without checking my maps, simply pointed in that direction and raised a wind to send me that way.
Then I leaned back beside the tiller and opened a jug of rice wine. Perhaps I went a little overboard with the wine. Not literally overboard from my boat, but overboard in the consumption. At some point, as I watched the stars spinning in the sky, I passed out. When I awoke, a being was standing over me with his hand on the tiller. I looked around and could not see any sign of land.
“Greetings,” I said.
“Oh, you’re awake. You must have a strong constitution to resist my sleep spell. But it is of no matter. It will be nice to have company for a while,” the man said.
“How may I address you?”
“You may call me A’a. I’m master of the seas in this part of the world.”
“My respect to you, A’a. I am Bob.”
“Yes. A creature direct from the primordial mass. When I saw your ship adrift, I had to investigate. You were asleep and I just enhanced your slumber a bit.”
“I was headed toward an island with a wind in my sail. I’m not sure how I got out here.”
“Well, you are headed toward an island. There is a wind. I might have altered the course a bit, but I saw that you are a strong and honest creature. I have need of such to help me with a small task.”
“How may I assist you, A’a?”
“It’s a simple matter of moving some stones. People who call on my name have asked for help in protecting their island. Now, I don’t normally get involved in such menial affairs. There are lesser gods that could do this, but I found their requests to be humorous and thought I might just have some fun. Having a helper will confuse them no end,” the god said. He had light tan skin, as if darker skin had been bleached by the salt water. When I looked more closely, however, I saw the glint of reflected sunlight off what could only pass as scales. Upon looking again, they were gone.
“You have a sense of humor,” I commented to the muscular god.
“Oh, yes. I spend far too much time quarreling with my brothers not to spend some bit of time having fun. It is a tiring world, even for a god.”
“I’m not nearly as old as the oceans,” I said, “but there are times when I simply want a place to settle down and stay concealed from the rest of the world.”
“I have a place like that! I’ll show you once we move the stones,” he said congenially. We had a great time as we sailed generally southeastward. That wasn’t the direction I’d intended to sail, but I had nowhere special to go. I could take my time. Eventually we came upon an island and sailed around it. I’d put a look-away spell on the boat when I was fleeing from the pirates, and I refreshed it so the islanders would not see us approaching.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing at an oddly shaped rock.
“That is why we are here. The islanders have come from across the sea in the past few centuries. They have reasoned that if they have found this place and it is a lush paradise for them, some others might also find it and take it from them. They have carved great stones into defenders of the island, but the stones all lie on their backs asleep. They are so large that the islanders have not figured a way to stand the stones up. They are sometimes called the sleeping guards or even the lazy guards. With your help, we’ll run around the island overnight and stand them all up. People will awake tomorrow morning with their guards standing alert and at attention. I can hardly wait to hear what tales they will create to tell about the waking of the guards.” He laughed and I joined him. It was like a huge practical joke.
“How many of them are there,” I asked.
“Oh, around a thousand, I suppose,” he said. “A good night’s work.”
Indeed, it would be. We’d need to each stand a stone up every minute through the night. I practiced my spell for lightening a load.
At sundown, the people all retreated to their homes. A’a and I started in the least populated areas and began standing the stones up, digging them into the ground a bit to stabilize them, and moving on to the next stone. A’a brought up a wind and a storm arose to cover the noise we were making and to keep people indoors. I think mostly it was to cover his giggles.
By sunrise, we were standing the last of the stones when I saw a girl—perhaps just twelve or fourteen—near one of the huts watching us. I decided not to mention that to A’a. I wasn’t confident of how he would treat a witness. Gods are like that. They prefer to eliminate things that aren’t in their plans.
We concealed ourselves near the village and waited for people to realize the great statues were standing all around the island. The people rushed around in near madness, some bowing down before the stones. Then I saw the girl who had witnessed the last erection begin to spin and twirl in front of a statue. Soon people were watching her as a spirit of divination descended upon her. I glanced at A’a and he just shrugged.
“Here is the story we shall tell to our children and our children’s children,” the girl said. “I saw the great king Tuu Ku Ihu rise up from the sea. He came in a boat like no other this island has seen. Tuu Ku Ihu saw the sleeping guards and he was angry. ‘How dare you sleep when you are supposed to be guarding my people?’ he yelled. At the sound of his voice, a great wind arose and there was with the king, A’a who made the world. Tuu Ku Ihu consulted with the god and they agreed to wake the guardians and get them up. I saw the great king Tuu Ku Ihu slap the sleeping guard to wake him up. A’a then commanded the guard to arise and maintain vigilance over his village. This, the guard has risen to do and will be vigilant over our village as long as he stands. I, Tuma’a, saw these things happen and tell you the truth. The king and the god awoke these giants and sent them to stand guard.”
At that the teen spun once more and collapsed as the spirit of divination departed from her. The people carried her in honor back to the village. And that became the story that was told. A’a and I returned to my boat and set sail, both wondering at what kind of spirit had come over the girl.
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