Bob's Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon--Volume 3

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 Volume Three: Current Era (mostly)
Prologue

HI! I’M BOB. I’ll be your uncle tonight.

No, just kidding. I’m your friendly neighborhood 4,000-year-old demon. This is the third volume of my memoirs and it will be filled with miscellaneous stuff from the past 4,000 years of my life, as I remember things while trying to sort out what is happening today. It’s all very confusing when you have that much trivia floating around in your head.

For example, I was just reminded of the time I saw Roman numerals invented. It was… A story for later. I really need to learn to stick to the one I’m telling now.

I called the first two volumes of my memoirs “Before Caesar” (BC) and “After Caesar” (AC) because I thought Caesar represented the pivotal point that divided my ancient past from my modern past. It was the time that I moved away from the Mediterranean as my base of operation and started East. So, what should I call this third volume? If I have my way, it will be called “Escape from Planet of the Humans.” I doubt my editors will let me get away with that one. And if they let it pass, the censors at the Brazilian Forest book selling giant would ban it. Ah well. I’ll call this the ‘Current Era,’ which means roughly 2020+.

You don’t need to read the first two volumes of my memoirs if you understand a few fundamental things that I’ll go about describing now. However, as an author who considers each of his words sacred, I’ll be highly offended if you don’t read my magnificent adventures in the other two volumes. Now or later.

First, some 4,000 years ago, give or take a couple of centuries, when I was being chased from Knossos on Crete, I worked a spell on an old leather satchel to create room inside it for whatever I wanted to put there. At the time, I was thinking of things like Pinaruti’s scrolls of magic, ingredients that he kept in his magic room, and wine. But in the rush to leave, I stuffed everything I could grab into the bag, including the furniture, the food, my wives, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down.

Over the ages, we discovered the infinity room, as I called it then—now called Areola—expanded to accommodate whatever I put in there. And the things I put in it brought the memory of their surroundings, so that when I put sheep in the room, lush pastures grew. When I planted crops, rain fell. And when I brought in people they seemed to live forever—young and healthy. Areola in the Current Era (CE) has a population of some three and a half million. It has its own eco-structure and physics, seemingly unrelated to that of earth. And it exists conveniently in an old leather satchel that I have worked countless spells on to enhance its durability and invisibility. More about that later.

Among the people in Areola are my five wives and five possessions. The wives are not the only wives I have had over the past 4,000 years. I have married many times, but these are the only ones who have taken up residence in the infinity room. The rest have lived out normal lives and I stayed with them and cradled them in my arms as they passed from the natural world. I have often wept because I loved each and every one of them.

My wives in Areola start with Nimia—with me since Knossos, not long after I was first summoned. Then there’s Penelope—formerly Odysseus’ wife, but I had been masquerading as the fabled hero for years (a story you can read about in volume one). I met and married Lakshmi, the third of my infinity wives, in India about two or three centuries AC. Esmeralda became my wife just before I sailed with Columbus. She is the great granddaughter of my one-time wife Esmira, who succeeded in locking me in the infinity room for seventy years before Esmeralda set me free. And finally, there is Peninnah, my wife of the Current Era, who sort of came with my inheritance of 500 billion dollars.

Occasionally—not as often as you might suspect—a lover asks or commands me to possess her. Those words are like a compulsion within me. I think I could resist, but I have no desire to. Once she says “Possess me!” I merge myself completely into her mind, body, and soul. I have acquired five possessions in the past 4,000 years. The first was Josephet, or Josie. She was the unwanted daughter of a desert sheikh—a girl I rescued from a well. Back when I was serving in Nebuchadnezzar’s court in Babylon, he made a gift of the lovely Persian, Pari. I asked her if she was a willing partner because I will have no slaves. She responded with those wonderful words. “Yes. Possess me.”

Let me see. After my voyage with Columbus, I spent a good bit of time wandering the southern Americas, collecting Kukulkàn’s people with his priestess, Maya. She happily became my possession at the urging of her god and goddess. And Liz is my twentieth century possession. She was a bra-burning feminist from San Francisco in the 1960s. She has a better grasp of the modern world than all except Peninnah, so is often at my side when I’m dealing with movie scripts and television producers.

I said five possessions and that is only four. Princess Agora is the only person I have ever possessed who didn’t specifically ask for it. I found her on an island in the South Pacific and we fell in love. She came with me when I sailed from the island, but was soon overwhelmed by the sense of vastness of the world. She had thought her island was the entire universe. I possessed her to save her from a near vegetative state brought on by acute agoraphobia. I offered to free her again later, but she would have none of it and now seldom leaves my palace in Areola.

There are others who are extremely important and will recur as I tell my story. The first is Fa Zhi. We met in China, sometime around a thousand years AC. She became so devoted to me that it nears worship. She is often my bodyguard and protector and has taken it upon herself to make sure everyone in Areola is trained in the martial arts.

Devotion that approaches worship is the province of Zhi. Complete worship is the exclusive province of the fifty-two priestesses of Bob. These are all young women I rescued in my days hunting pirates in the Pacific between the Americas and Asia. They had all been captured, enslaved, and abused by various pirates, whom I gleefully destroyed. The girls were in truly bad shape when I brought them to Areola, so I made up a ritual to purify them in the pool. From that moment, they have worshiped The Bob in his temple. They allow no man to come near them, including me when I am in human guise. They worship me only as the horned and goat-legged demon. They also happen to be the most highly skilled of all the martial artists Zhi has trained. They have become a kind of ninja corps and have been called upon over the years to rescue one of our number or to free women and children (mostly) from traffickers around the world. I foresee great things for them before we leave earth.

Which brings me to the final category of people I will mention by name. I bought a space exploration company and my intent is to get in a rocket ship and just keep going into outer space so I can safely crawl into the satchel and spend eternity in Areola. In order to get things off the ground, so to speak, my advisor Doug developed the concept of a reality television show to select a crew of beautiful women for my ship. He said no one would believe we were really blasting off and the TV show would keep suspicions off us in the name of entertainment.

We selected a crew during the mini-series as a competition. There were complications and I didn’t want to lose any of the eliminated contestants. I started taking the ‘losers’ to Areola if they wanted to continue on the journey with me. All but two elected to do so. When we were down to just seven contestants, I faced a rebellion and they refused to eliminate anyone else from their number and threatened to all walk out if I sent any of them away. Quite the climax to the mini-series. I brought them all to Areola.

The eleven women of my ‘crew’ are Deedee—a 23-year-old sociologist, selected for me by the goddess Aphrodite; Artemisia—an 18-year-old artist whose devotion approaches that of Zhi; Wendy—a 28-year-old journalist and master mimic of voices; Eun-ha—a 23-year-old Korean mathematician; Suhani—a 29-year-old Indian software engineer; Julie—a 22-year-old Formula one racecar driver; Valerie—a 30-year-old former chef to the Queen of England; Karla—a 31-year-old commercial pilot; Lalonda—a 31-year-old black former policewoman and martial arts expert; Marie—a 33-year-old Mexican doctor with an incredible sense of humor; and Linda—a 27-year-old school teacher. I give you all their ages because once they entered Areola, that is the age they stayed at, no matter how long this story goes on.

I brought a couple of others along from the crew of the show as well. A young physicist named Paul became quite attached to Julie and went to Areola with her. Doug is my friend and producer. I could scarcely leave him behind, though he has to function in the natural world as well as Areola, while we start production of the second season of To Boldy Go. We had to launch a second season to compensate for the delays in getting my spaceship ready to blast off. I’ll explain that more as we come to it. And Doug’s girlfriend, camerawoman Avril. She’s coming, too.

There are many others—concubines and friends and people who were taken to Areola or were born there—and I’ll undoubtedly mention them, but you just won’t know their backgrounds unless you decided to go back and read the first two volumes. I don’t plan to retell stories I’ve told before. Though I’m sometimes told I repeat myself.

Why are we going to all this work? For 4,000 years, I’ve been searching for a place where I could hide the satchel and never have it found. But everywhere on earth that I’ve hidden, I’ve been found by explorers, conquerors, and predators, and have had to move again. It is becoming harder and harder to keep the satchel from discovery. My look-away spell is fine when it comes to human eyes, but cameras can see the satchel. Airport security x-rays see it. I suspect that if they knew exactly what they were looking for, Uncle Sam could get a close satellite picture of it.

So, I invested in a space exploration company and ‘volunteered’ to lead the first colonization mission to Mars. My intent was to bypass the red planet and just keep going into space forever. That’s why we organized the television reality show to pick my crew of beautiful friendly women for the voyage. Unfortunately, when I had the crew, Doug informed me the ship was not ready and wouldn’t be for at least a year. We needed to come up with a second season. That’s what’s keeping me confused and active now.

With those little bits of information, I think you can enjoy this volume of my memoirs, even if you miss out on all the adventures of the past 4,000 years I’ve related in the previous books.

Five, four, three, two, one. Ignition!

Part XI
Headaches and Heartaches

Image Credit: Avishake07
ID2137912169 licensed from Shutterstock.com

55
Dark Chocolate

I AM PASSIONATE about a few things. I’m passionate about beautiful women. I’m passionate about good looking women. I’m passionate about pretty women. I’m passionate about pretty good looking women. And other women, too. But there are other things.

I’m passionate about all my people in Areola, and would defend them against all odds. I’m passionate about flying. I still wish Pinaruti had thought to give me wings. That would be so awesome. And I am passionate about fighting sex trafficking and all forms of slavery.

I say all forms and that includes men, women, and children. For example, a few years ago, as I was munching on one of my favorite dark chocolate bars, I read an article about slavery in the cocoa industry. I was appalled and spat the chocolate I was eating into the garbage. We might as well be eating the bodies of the children who are trafficked into slavery in Ghana and West Africa to work on the plantations.

I considered several ways to combat this. The easiest, in my simple mind, would be to loose the ninja priestesses on the owners and slavers in the industry and let them nail a few bodies to the doors. It’s become more difficult to launch crusades like that when I have to travel in today’s world. The airport scanners can identify my satchel even if the look-away spell is fresh. Of course, they can’t see Areola. Unless I open a gateway, the satchel functions as a simple case in which I keep a few papers and innocuous traveler’s goods. That’s all they see when the bag goes through the x-ray and when the bag is opened to look inside. I am concerned, however, about the effect of various forms of radiation on the satchel seeping into the infinity room. I have no evidence of that so far, but it still concerns me.

Each time I adopt a new identity, I need to create all the paperwork for it. I need a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport, marriage certificate, deeds, stock certificates, and bank accounts. It’s very complicated to travel anonymously to another country and wreak havoc on the slave trade.

So, I did the next best thing. I bought a cocoa plantation, freed the slaves and tried to reunite the children with parents when possible, and employed workers to take care of the plantation. I have compared the cost of owning a slave to the cost of paying a fair wage and employing workers. I find it is a wash. I continued to sell my cocoa at the same prices the slave cocoa had commanded. But I soon found the doors closed on my efforts to buy other plantations.

After attacking a few traffickers, I gave up the process for two reasons. The first was that each trafficker I brought down accounted for such a minuscule portion of the children and adults stolen into slavery that it did not seem to make a difference. The second reason was that, as fast and silent and nearly invisible as my ninja priestesses are, they are no match for machine guns, grenades, and other ordnance that falls freely into the hands of traffickers. I’m still working on a solution to that problem. My priestesses are precious to me and I will not willingly risk them in a battle against such machinery.

I fear that the days of attacking traffickers and pirates with swords and knives and nailing their bodies to the wall are all but gone.

Next, I turned to an all-American solution, inspired by a teen whose research paper revealed the amount of slavery involved in the chocolate industry and outlined a means to combat it. I employed him to start putting his ideas in action. We created a small chocolate company and started importing only fair trade cocoa from independent farmers Josh negotiated with directly. I made sure he was supplied with adequate capital to get the ingredients we needed and to ensure it was not slave-based cocoa.

Of course, that only served to make a very small dent in the chocolate market. We weren’t even listed on the Exchange of American Chocolate Companies. We got distribution through a local chain of grocery stores and a few specialty shops. But it was our start.

I invested in a chocolatier back in 1855, when I was living in San Francisco. Through ups and downs and several generations of ownership, it had survived and prospered. It had a much better marketing position, and even though it wasn’t strictly enforced within the company, it was trying to do an ethical business in a market that was becoming less and less friendly. I increased my stake, and once I’d become the controlling board member, I finished the acquisition and made Josh the chief of the larger company. We began to gain brand recognition and Josh expanded our buying into the markets that were dominated by the slavers. When he discovered an independent farmer was actually owned by one of the big plantations, he cut them off, even if they personally weren’t using slave labor in their operation. We insisted on purity in our product and purchased the beans directly.

And then Peninnah came along. When she found what we were doing, she began negotiations with a very large chocolate company and I began acquiring shares in the publicly traded international company. That required a great deal of negotiation as the company was closely held. Ultimately, she was able to exchange the value of our little company for equivalent shares in the new parent and I began pressing the megalith to start sourcing their chocolate in the way we did.

At first, they simply left Josh alone to continue to make his elite type of chocolate. It has since been discovered that our little subsidiary is more profitable by percentage than the rest of the company combined. That might be because the big plantations have seen the guaranteed rates we pay independent farmers and have tried to price their cocoa in the same range. That went over poorly with many chocolatiers around the world.

We’ve a long way to go. We have begun to make a dent in the slave trade by making fair trade cocoa more profitable than slave cocoa. But even the major chocolatier we own a stake in accounts for only four percent of the world chocolate market. I’m thinking we might still need to invade Africa with a few ninjas and make an example of the worst of the plantations we have found.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yes. My continued passion for fighting the slave trade and human trafficking.

Liz frequently tells me that my prevailing opinions are chauvinistic and it should not take the sex trafficking of women and children to get my goat—so to speak. Yes, I am opposed to slavery of all kinds. I just have a special soft spot for helping the weakest.

Back when Pinaruti summoned me… Remember Pinaruti? He was the hapless and slightly drunk sorcerer who attempted to summon Beelzebub back in Knossos, Crete about 2,000 years BC (Before Caesar) and slurred the name. Much to his surprise, he got me: Beetlebob. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Me.) Pinaruti conveniently died of shock when he saw me and unwittingly created a bridge for me to cross into the natural world, a free demon.

I read Pinaruti’s memories from his cooling body and discovered his intent was to imprison me in the walls of King Drakomaxos’s palace and force me to keep it cool in the summer. Yes, his intent was to make a slave of me. I was horrified! And frankly pleased the old fool had died when his summoning actually worked. But the very thought of slavery has gone against my grain ever since that day.

When I finally convinced Drakomaxos I could build a palace of stone that stayed cool, he immediately wanted to get a bunch of slaves to build it for him. I started my mantra that has been with me for four millennia: A house built by slaves will soon crumble around its owner. In Mania, I made sure that was the case when I was hired to build a palace for the king. Soon after the palace was built for Idiopheles by slaves (and I was safely away at sea), an earthquake brought his palace down around his ears.

Then I was commissioned to build a temple for the god Ninra in Bathra, a town in Mesopotamia. He and the goddess Namri agreed that no slave labor would be used in building their palace. Slavery became anathema in Bathra for centuries.

And so the story goes. I have always been opposed to slavery.

As to sex slavery, this started out as just another form of slavery that I was opposed to. You see, one of the things about having lived a long life is that I have changed. I have learned to adapt to changing mores and to learn from them.

There was a time in certain cultures when women were considered chattel, disposed of by their fathers into the possession of their husbands. In some cultures, women were not allowed to own property, to make friends or even to leave their house. I always felt this was silly but it did not truly sink in that the treatment of women was abhorrent and immoral and a form of slavery until I spent twenty years as a woman. I discovered my weaknesses, my frustration, and my fears. I thereafter made sure that each of my women had the opportunity to learn martial arts to the best of their ability so they would never need to walk in fear.

I further gave those who wished it an opportunity to live as a man for a day and to gain insight into a man’s appetites, fears, and power. Most discovered the physical power of a man was not worth exchanging their female bodies for. Some wanted the change made permanent and I happily gave them that wish. There was even an instance back in Bathra when the goddess Namri granted a man his wish to become a priestess in her temple. I got to fuck her once and verified that she was, indeed, changed wholly into a woman.

The thing is that I changed. I became more aware of women as societal equals of men. And when I witnessed women denied that equality, through slavery and abuse, my ire rose to heights unmatched. I once severed the head from the body of one of Odysseus’s crew who insisted the woman he captured in Troy was his to do with as he wished. I lost a few more crew members that day as they decided my rules were too hard for them to live by. And I gained a couple of women who chose to live in the infinity room.

I believe that is a fundamental problem with the world as I look around it today. People refuse to change. I include both men and women in that category. They see the problems and are taught the lessons, but they refuse to change. The thought that greater physical power carries the right of greater social power is so deeply ingrained that men attempt to exercise their superiority by suppressing, abusing, and enslaving women and children.

I am sad to say that this myth is propagated through many of the world’s religions, designed, it seems, to maintain a society in which men are inherently superior to women and children. This fundamental belief is what feeds the slave trade—especially sex trafficking of women and children.

As a result, I become irrationally incensed when I find captive women and children.

Since the time I discovered the first young girls imprisoned on a pirate ship for the pleasure of the pirates, I have taken as my mission dispatching the offenders as quickly and efficiently—and sometimes as painfully—as I can. My demon morality is not offended by the deaths of slavers.

Those priestesses—the fifty-two very young women I found on various pirate ships over my few dozen years as a trans-Pacific trader—experienced the worst of serial rape and abuse. They were healed and cleansed by me in the pool and became my priestesses. And then they trained harder than any other people in Areola to become an avenging force wherever I pointed them at sex traffickers. They’d once saved Peninnah from kidnapping and rape by completely destroying the personal army of a Japanese corporate president. We now own his company.

All of that is to explain some of my actions in this Current Era (CE).

The United States experienced a surge in refugees coming across the southern border. Rather than taking them in and giving them shelter, they were considered ‘illegal aliens’ and were arrested. Many parents and children were separated, most never to be reunited. That pissed me off. But when I found out what was happening under the radar, I went full goat ballistic.

The liberals of the world decried the pictures of children in cages and parents separated and kept in detention camps. Many were announced as deported. But the true story never made the news. I found out only by accident when I was searching for a place in the Arizona desert where I could hide the satchel and crawl in for a few years. I’d also decided to hide out and see what happens when refugees illegally crossed the border out in the desert.

Truckloads of hopefuls were being taken across the border and were stopped and incarcerated on the spot by border agents. Dozens, or perhaps hundreds never made it to detention camps. The desert hides hundreds of bodies of unknown people who came across the border for refuge and were killed on the spot.

Oh, don’t let me get the issue confused. I would never accuse the border patrol of murdering innocents. I don’t think. It seemed that just before the agents showed up, however, the men who ran the transport lined up the men in their load and shot them. They made the women and children dig in the sand to bury their fathers and husbands. Then they spotted border agents coming to chase down the illegal immigrants. The men running the transports always seemed to be able to disappear while the agents focused on rounding up the women and children and putting them in yet another unmarked truck to take them away to detention. The women tried to tell the agents about the murders but were simply pushed into the truck and taken away.

When I witnessed this happening, I took off across the desert in my demon form after the men who transported these unwitting refugees across the border. They were already in Mexico, but that didn’t make a difference to me. We don’t need no steenking badges. Six men were counting out and dividing the money they’d taken from the refugees. I fell upon them and twisted heads on necks until there were none still alive. I discovered the transporters were called ‘coyotes.’

That was how I found out about rescue operations and bullets. This scar I bear on my side is where the one shot that was fired in time hit me. I hadn’t been swift enough to avoid it. I was lucky. It hit me in the side and I was in a remote part of the desert where I could hide and enter Areola for a few days to recover. But like Issa still bore the scars of his execution after he’d been resurrected, so I still bear the scar from my brief battle.

When I left the infinity room to have a look around, I discovered the bodies, truck, and money I’d left behind were all removed. I assumed someone had come looking for them. That meant there would be others in this racket that needed to be taken care of eventually. I didn’t know when or where to start looking for them, so I prowled around the desert for several weeks before I spotted another delivery being made.

“Where did they take the women and children,” Zhi asked me as I was healing.

“I don’t know, love,” I said.

“Bob, it is good that you destroyed the murderers, though you should have called for me or the priestesses to help you. But killing those men did nothing to help the women and children who were taken away,” she said.

“Don’t you think they were taken away to a detention center? Those were government agents who rounded up the refugees and took them away.”

“Bob, I don’t think that’s a safe bet,” said Virginia. My concubine had been with me since the late 1950s and had continued to be active in the civil rights and antiwar movements into the mid-sixties. She was a pretty savvy young woman, though she’d disappeared from the natural world some sixty years previously. “You said the truck was unmarked. None of the agents accompanied it. How do you know where they were taken?”

So, I watched the scene in the desert play out once again. This time, however, I did not chase after the coyotes. I waited and watched as the women and children were rounded up and loaded in the unmarked truck. The truck went one direction and the border patrol went another, pretending to search for the coyotes. I followed the truck.

It did not stop at any known detention center. In fact, it went straight to a major city and into a warehouse. When the truck got past the rocky and slow part of the desert track it had followed, it picked up speed and it was obvious I would not be able to keep up with it. I quickly went into the infinity room and pulled out my Trans Am. I probably tore the hell out of the undercarriage bouncing over some of that track, even though the truck had picked up speed. I made a note to myself to get a Jeep if I decided to do any more of this shit.

Regardless, I was able to keep up with the truck once we hit the freeway. The look-away spell I had on the Trans Am kept me from being noticed by other drivers, but I knew radar would pick up the car if I encountered a speed trap. I had enough to do to keep out of the way of drivers who didn’t notice me on the freeway.

I parked near the warehouse where the truck led me, and started to do some scanning to see what I could find. I brought Zhi, Ali, and two other bodyguards from the infinity room to help keep watch over the action. What we discovered was sickening.

A manager came through the warehouse and checked each room, making notes on the contents. I managed to locate his clipboard when he went into a restroom and discovered it listed the contents of each room in the terms one would use for livestock. Each person in the room was given a number, written on her forehead with a permanent marker. On the sheet, the number was placed in a column with the names of various buyers for the livestock. Some were for shipment out of the country. Some for ‘adoption.’ And some were designated for buyers in the States.

You might think of the United States as being relatively pure when it comes to trafficking, but that is not so. A study I encountered near that time had said that fifty percent of the human traffic went through the US at some point. A percentage of those stayed in the country. The rest were shipped to buyers around the world.

This would be a massive effort. We might manage to assault the warehouse and take out the guards and free the women and children. But to what life? The men they had known were dead. They were illegally in the country. Where would they go? And how would that change the game? We needed to get to the buyers.

The first set was easy. A truck came, loaded women with a few small children, and drove to a dock in Texas. There, the container was loaded on a ship bound for Iran. Before the ship was sealed, I entered, opened the container, and invited the women to come to the infinity room. Maya explained what was being offered in terms the women could understand and they all entered through the gateway.

I returned to the warehouse to await the next load.

I’d missed some and was upset that I’d let so many be enslaved. I was preparing an assault on the warehouse when we got our first big break. The boss came in to tour the warehouse and inspect the stock. He was accompanied by half a dozen buyers who were there to negotiate prices and delivery.

I unleashed the priestesses.

They were prepared for the men with guns and I had provided a look-away spell for each of them so they would not be noticed until they actually made contact. The first contact was with the guards who were outside the warehouse, patrolling in a way that let us know they’d done this many times before. At a silent signal, they all fell with arrows in their throats, eyes, or chests. A second crew of priestesses swiftly moved among the men silently dispatching any who were still alive.

My bodyguards quickly pulled the bodies under a concealing tarp as the priestesses moved inside. They stayed in the shadows and were silent death as they efficiently took care of the remaining guards without a shot being fired. And finally, we came to a room where the men were getting to sample the wares. Women and children were being stripped and presented to the men for their pleasure.

The priestesses of Bob had all undergone similar treatment at the hands of pirates in the Pacific two hundred years before. They did not wait for commands or instruction. Shuriken flew and swords flashed. None of the traffickers were left alive in two minutes as fifty-two furies descended upon them.

Maya, Josie, and Liz led a humanitarian squad from the infinity room and, with the assistance of the priestesses, conducted over a hundred women and children into the infinity room.

The priestesses and bodyguards were not finished. Once the women and children were gone, the priestesses hauled all the bodies into the main area of the warehouse and began nailing the bodies to the walls. I noticed they seemed to take particular pleasure in putting a spike through the genitals of each man and into the wall. They swung heavy hammers with long nails. Some were driven directly through the neck and into the wall. Some through shoulders. Some were hung upside down with nails through their feet. Then everyone went into the satchel and I surveyed the area, noting that not a single sword, shuriken, arrow, or knife had been left behind.

I was surprised, however, when I recognized the dead face and blankly staring eyes of a United States Senator among those nailed to the walls. I ran out of the warehouse and drove my Trans Am north to a private spot before packing it back into my bag and getting out a much newer Lexus. This I drove back to my base in the Midwest where I was a simple housing developer.

The only newspaper article I ever saw about the subject was a notice that Senator Truman had unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and had passed away in his home before emergency medical services could arrive. There was never a mention of the others who were left hanging in the warehouse. Or if there was, perhaps I simply didn’t know the names to identify what story had been released about them. There was certainly nothing about a warehouse massacre in a city in Arizona.

I had to wonder how high up in the US government the workings of human trafficking were being supported. I really needed to get out of here.

Well, that went way darker than I intended to get in this volume, but I was reminded of all of that when I met a young woman one day as I was doing some shopping for gifts for my harem. They all liked me to bring home new sexy things for them to wear, even though they didn’t keep them on for long.

Let me just say that the store was not a major brand. You know what they say: Shop local.

“Welcome, sir. We’re happy to have you in our store this evening,” the young woman said. There were half a dozen women sitting in a little lounge area—all dressed in very scanty sexy clothes. “Have you ever been to ‘Show Me’ before?”

“No,” I confessed. “I just want to buy some pretty things for my women.”

“I’ll bet you do. You must have a lot of them, as strong and handsome as you are. You aren’t gay are you?” she asked innocently. “Nothing wrong with that, but I’d call one of the boys to help you. Let me tell you about how we work here.”

She proceeded to tell me they were a ‘personal shopping’ service. All the girls were available to help select and model the lingerie. I could have as many of the girls as I wanted for just $200 each and they would help me select and then model up to five different outfits. They hoped I would purchase something ‘off the rack,’ in a manner of speaking. I glanced around and saw that prices displayed were well over $100 per outfit.

What the heck. It’s only money and this promised to be an interesting new experience. I asked the young woman if she would be my model and she happily accepted the $200 I gave her and hung on my arm as we walked through the very well-stocked store. I was surprised that she actually knew her business as well as how to arouse me. She pointed out several outfits and asked questions about who I was buying for.

“She must be very special that you care enough to shop here. This is one of my favorites. It’s soft and sexy. See? No rough seams or scratchy lace. I feel like a million bucks in it, I’m told. Please let me model this one for you.”

I agreed. Wait! She’d been told it made her feel like a million bucks? Wouldn’t she know how she feels in an outfit without being told?

She led me to a room with a comfortable chair, table, and small stage. She poured me a glass of wine and told me to just relax for a minute while she changed into the first outfit. Then she took the five pieces I’d selected and disappeared behind a curtain. I heard voices outside our room and wondered how many stages like this they had for customers. It turned out there was a stage for each girl who was working and by the time I left, they all had customers. Of course, that was much later.

“Mr. Bob, this first outfit is one you chose in a royal blue,” she said as she mounted the stage in front of me. It was very attractive and wonderfully displayed on her lithe body. “I love how this fabric moves with me when I walk, making that gentle swishing sound that will let you know your lover has arrived before you ever see her approaching. Notice the way it hugs my curves, especially how the fabric falls across my butt and accents the shape. If you are an ass man, this is a sure fire way to bring the soldier to attention.”

She continued to strut across the stage and pause to pose in various sexy positions. I was very appreciative. Then she stepped off the stage and approached me.

“You can’t always tell what an outfit will do for your girlfriend unless you touch it and confirm that she would feel good in it.” She guided my hand to touch her… the fabric, as it fell over her butt. “Did you notice that you can see the shape and outline of my nipples without actually seeing through the fabric. She’ll love it when you softly caress her breasts encased in this lovely fabric.” She demonstrated by guiding my hands to her breasts and rubbing them around so I could feel her hard nipples beneath the fabric. Then she stepped back.

“That’s lovely,” I said. “I can imagine Maya in it. She’ll love it. I’ll take it.”

“Oh, my! A sale already? You are a wonderful boyfriend. Stand up and help me out of this.”

What? I stood and she showed me exactly the best way to remove the little outfit, leaving her bare in front of me. She turned to face me.

“Would you like me to show you the next outfit now?” she asked, making no move to leave until I gasped a ‘yes.’ Then I watched her bare bottom disappear behind the curtain.

As soon as she was off-stage, a woman I recognized as the cashier at the door of the shop entered the room and took the outfit from me.

“I’ll wrap this and have it ready when you are finished here,” she said. “I hope you enjoy the rest of the show!”

And thus, the show continued. She arranged the outfits in a way that let the sexiness increase with each piece of lingerie she wore on stage. I bought each of them. The last item was the ‘favorite’ she had chosen.

I once met an artist who had experimented with sculpting women behind a veil. It was a fascinating technique and when he was finished with a marble sculpture, you swore the veil was transparent in places, showing details of her face, while a fold in the fabric obscured other places. The final outfit Angel, my model, wore reminded me of that as it was nearly transparent, exposing her nipples, her navel, and her crotch, though keeping them covered with the fabric. As she moved, multiple layers of the fabric would shift and obscure the view.

Finally, she settled on my lap and encouraged me to pet her wherever I wanted. She even showed me how to get my hand beneath the fabric so I was caressing her skin and bare breasts beneath the fabric.

“I’m afraid this outfit has a very high price, Mr. Bob. But it has accessories that come with it. Do you see the collar I wear around my neck? It’s my slave collar. If you snap this leash to the collar, and pay the $1,500 price for the outfit, I come with it. And I promise, you will come, too. I will be your sex slave for as long as you will keep me and take care of me. I know you’ve mentioned Maya and Josie and Liz, and I know you must have others. Add me to your collection. I’m not normally a high pressure sales girl, but I’m ready for a change and you are the best thing that has come through our door in a long time. Buy the outfit and take me with you, Mr. Bob.”

I was so shocked I could hardly speak. She was rubbing at my crotch and I had a finger in her moist pussy as she talked. It was incredibly disorienting.

“You’re a slave?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes. I’ve been in the lifestyle since I turned eighteen and that’s been almost ten years.”

Ten years? She didn’t look more than twenty at the most.

“I’ll buy you and set you free,” I said angrily. “And all the others in the store.”

“Mr. Bob! How could you? Don’t you like us? Me? Would you really throw me out like that? I thought you were special. I wanted you to own me.”

“I’m confused. Do you mean to say that being a sex slave is your choice?” I asked.

“Yes. I love it! I don’t have to make any decisions. I don’t live in poverty. I get all the love and affection I could ever want. My owners have been good men, but I’ll probably not be marketable for much longer. Most of the masters want younger women. I thought you liked me.”

She started to push away from me and I pulled her tighter to hold her.

“You really want me to buy you? I don’t know if I can be a slave owner. I live in a different world.”

“Then take me to your world. Even if you remove my collar, I’ll remain your slave. Mr. Bob, take this last outfit off of me and make me yours.”

I complied, and an hour later I walked out of the lingerie store with my new sex slave—dressed once again in the transparent negligee—to return home and try to explain to my wives how I came to own a slave.

Sometimes, life is very confusing for a simple demon!

56
When Is a Slave Not a Slave?

NOW LEST YOU START THINKING ‘Bob is the world’s biggest hypocrite,’ let me tell you that I did free Angel—under her terms. I took her to Areola and undressed her completely, including removing her collar. Then I gave her the full tour of the palace and city, with both of us wandering around naked, like the majority of the inhabitants.

“When you said you were from a different world, I thought you meant it figuratively,” Angel said as we stepped into the pool just to float for a bit. “This is literally a different world than earth.”

“We think so. At the very least, it is a different dimension. Everyone here is free. But we all live in harmony in the lifestyle we prefer,” I explained the best I could. “Maybe my concubines would be better at explaining. Many were once slaves or lived in societies where the practicality was slavery, even if it didn’t go by that name.”

“But if I’m employed by you, that’s no different than being a prostitute. When I offered myself as a slave, I got no personal gain from it. It was a mission—a kind of ministry if you will. I would be taken care of as good masters take care of their world, but I wouldn’t get paid. Even the little bag of things I brought with me was little more than the necessities and a couple of gifts from former masters. You can’t imagine how liberating that lifestyle is,” she said.

“Well, I’m not going to pay you,” I laughed. “Everyone here works for the good of Areola. As a result, everyone has plenty for all their needs. I make sure everyone is cared for.”

“So, in a manner of speaking, everyone here is your slave,” she said thoughtfully. I had to think that one through for a while. It reminded me…

Remember when I was with the Great Khaans of Mongolia and China? Most notably, Chinggis Khaan loved to hear me talk of the places I’d been and temples I’d built and the battles I’d witnessed. We sat for hours while I outlined the wars and strategies of Caesar, and sometimes he called one or more of his sons and grandsons in to listen to something particularly important in his mind. Then he asked me to go find a place for his capital city and build it. By that time, I think he was pretty convinced that I was not mortal.

I went off wandering and eventually found the site for Xanadu where I built the city and palace and temple while waiting for Khaan to arrive. Instead, his chief minister or general arrived with 20,000 horsemen, ready to storm the city. They found the gates open wide and the city ready for them to inhabit. When the Khaan arrived, it was Hubilai Khaan ready to take possession. When he was installed and had toured the city, I begged his leave to return east to my homeland ‘to die.’ He agreed, but said to wait just a bit until he had learned ‘one more thing.’ The tales his grandfather told had not fallen on deaf ears. Hubilai was fascinated with tales and stories of other lands and customs. He’d been visited by two ‘Latin’ brothers and sent them back to Europe to get him priests and oil from the lamp at the sacred sepulcher. They’d been gone some years before Khaan moved to Xanadu. But while I was there, they returned.

The brothers Nicolo and Maffeo were accompanied by Nicolo’s son, Marco Polo. Marco was the reason I was finally permitted to leave the service of the Khaan. Each time I’d suggested that I needed to leave, Hubilai would agree and say, “Next month,” or “Next year.” Or, in fact, whenever he grew tired of me.

Marco was a new diversion for the Khaan. His father and uncle were welcome, but Marco soon became the Khaan’s favorite at court. He was a bright young man, about twenty years old when he arrived. He had no idea at the time that he and his father and uncle would remain there in the service of the Great Khaan for many years. Khaan sent Marco to me for instruction in the martial arts and Buddhism as the family had failed in the mission to bring priests. The priests they were bringing chickened out and fled back west. Nicolo and Maffeo set up a school in which they taught the seven arts of the West: rhetoric, logic, grammar, arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry. In turn, Marco was to learn the arts of the East.

He was a little full of himself, but generally a nice kid. He studied diligently and soon prepared for the first mission that Hubilai would send him on over the next fifteen or so years. He asked my advice.

“The Khaan is dissatisfied with the reports he gets from his ambassadors,” I said. “You can be different.”

“How shall I differ, Zongshi?” he asked. One of the things Marco had going for him was that he was taught respect from an early age. He had another uncle in Venice who had mostly raised him. The Italian Family was very big on respect.

“The other ambassadors the Khaan has sent out came back with a concise factual report on the situation they went to investigate or deal with. They struck a good trade deal for winter rice. This tartar would like to marry the daughter of that tartar. The war at the wall has been averted for now but there is a weakness near Lomein. He needs these reports. But he wants to know more about them. He wants to hear about the customs in this part of the land that differ from customs in Xanadu. He wants to know what you think of their language, what the people look like, what the fashions are. He wants examples of their art and their music. Even differing religious beliefs and philosophy. These are things the other ambassadors fail to bring back to him, but which you have brought him from Italy. You have told him about the pope and brought him oil from the holy sepulcher. These are the things the Khaan yearns for and they are all things that will make him a better and wiser ruler. You can bring these things to the Khaan.”

Marco considered this and went off on his first short mission as a representative of the Khaan. When he returned, he gave his official report and then sat with Hubilai and regaled him with tales of the customs of the people, what vassal had a birthday, who was pregnant, how the peasants were dealing with the water shortage, and even sang a song he’d learned. Khaan was delighted. It turned out that Marco was quite a storyteller.

I chose that time to ask Hubilai Khaan once again for leave to return to my homeland in the East and he granted it at once. He gave me a horse and attempted to press other valuables on me that would have taken a wagon to carry. I politely declined the gifts with the statement that these gifts would do me no good in my grave and should be given to the bright young ambassador, Marco Polo.

The next morning, I rode like the wind toward the East. Three days later, I found a place where I could seclude myself within the satchel and changed my body for one much younger. I renewed my relationship with my wives and possessions and then with my concubines and with my priestesses. Refreshed and ready once again, I proceeded into Northern China and what is now Russia.

In all but name, I had been a slave in Hubilai Khaan’s court. I was not ‘captive.’ All I could ever want was provided for me. I had minimal duties in work that I loved, teaching about the tantras and the forms of martial arts. But I could not leave Xanadu without the permission of the Khaan.

Marco Polo served in Hubilai Khaan’s court for seventeen years before his father and uncle successfully begged to be allowed to return to Italy. It was a near thing then and they would not have been allowed to leave if it had not been that a certain princess needed to be delivered to a subsidiary king in India. Read about Marco’s adventures sometime. They are almost as interesting as mine.

But if Khaan had not had a new plaything to occupy him in Marco Polo, I would never have been free.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Angel.

“Since you consider all here in Areola to be my slaves, then I free you to join them,” I said after I’d considered her proposition. “I will expect you to work for the betterment of our world, just as all the others do. Will that be acceptable to you?”

“Yes, master. If that is what it takes to serve you, it is acceptable except for one minor thing. I am a sexual being. If you will not call me ‘slave’ then I am your sex servant. My job on Areola is to give you any sexual experience you desire upon your command. Please, Mr. Bob. Use me. P…”

I slammed my lips against hers and took her, right there beside the pool. But I did not let her use the words ‘Possess me.’ On the other hand, I found she was one of the most creative lovers I had ever had. Every part of her was open for my invasion. And I used every opening. Oh, I made sure she had pleasure from everything we did and we both lost count of the number of orgasms we’d enjoyed. But she explored me in ways I had not used since we learned the tantric meditations. I went to bed, exhausted with Nimia and Josie at my side. And for the first time that I could recall, I had a nocturnal emission. Yes, a wet dream. It so startled me that I sat straight up in bed and looked down at the mess I’d made on myself.

As I sat there with my sleeping wife and possession beside me, gasping for breath, Angel crept up from the foot of the bed where she’d slept and proceeded to clean me with her tongue as I petted her head and whispered loving words to her. She nursed my cock back to full stiffness and then swallowed it into her throat as I came again. She smiled at me and quietly returned to the little nest she’d made at the foot of my bed.

Angel does not sleep at my feet every night. In fact, she once confessed that she was glad there were a hundred other women to help keep me satisfied because I would exhaust any dozen women with my appetite and stamina. And I heard it whispered that she had found a mission teaching others her techniques and philosophy of being a willing sex slave to Bob. I’m not sure any of my concubines, wives, possessions, or priestesses actually needed the instruction, but Angel had her mission.

I still struggle with the ethics of this situation. I created the infinity room. Or did I? Perhaps I only truly opened a gateway to another dimension that created itself around my desires. Yet, everyone I have brought into the infinity room—with their consent—has found everything they ever need provided for them. They all contribute in some way or another.

I have firmly disproved the idea that people need to work forty hours or five days a week or fifty weeks a year to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. The one who contributes a new song to our community is as valuable as the one who harvests a bushel of wheat. This is the rule our world lives by. Other than Angel, I don’t believe anyone considers him or herself a slave. But as we grew, I needed to continue to think about my relationship to my people.

Soon after I brought the mini-series contestants to Areola, Artemisia, the youngest of our crew, came to me with a question. She’d happily discovered that ganja was freely available in Areola. As a result, use was casual and it was mostly used for special occasions. People really didn’t need any additional way to relax or feel good. Nonetheless, Artie had indulged, simply because it was available and the idea was firmly ingrained in her from her home in California. She had definitely indulged in a favorite cupcake before she came to talk to me.

“I was wondering, Bob,” she began as she planted her naked butt in my lap. I did not impale her, but it was a near miss. She wouldn’t have minded if I had. But we reclined comfortably beside the pool and cuddled for this conversation.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“Um… What is the religion here in Areola? Are we going to offend someone by not offering a proper prayer before a meal? Should we be going to church? Are there seasonal rituals? Are you really a god?”

“Whoa. That’s a lot of questions. What do you think are the answers?”

“I certainly feel like I’ve been with a god when we make love,” she giggled. And wiggled. The young artist/body builder knew well what rubbing her hard body against me could lead to and seemed to be headed that direction. I let her drive that part, though I held that firm butt in one hand and petted her breasts with the other. We kissed in the long and languid way that lovers do when they are high. I wasn’t, but she was.

“I’ve never really claimed to be a god,” I said. “I’m a simple demon.”

“Who has a temple at the other end of this pool with fifty-two ferocious priestesses ready to lay their lives down on your altar?”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly my idea.”

“Yeah. I heard. The priestesses are pretty open about what happened, where they came from, and how many kidnappers and traffickers they’ve killed,” Artie said. “They also worship you. But they told me straightaway that no one else was expected to worship you. It was something special between them and you.”

“That’s a good description. I certainly wouldn’t want them to go all missionary on me and try to evangelize the rest of Areola,” I said. What a catastrophe that would be!

“Yeah, but that’s what got me wondering what the religion in Areola is.”

“I’ve never tried to control that,” I mused. “When they came into the infinity room, many of the people brought the religion and customs they were born with to the room. For example, did you know there is another temple just a ways from here. Kind of that way,” I said, pointing. “There are another hundred or so priestesses there. I brought them from Troy.”

“As in the Fall of Troy? Wooden horses? Achilles? Odysseus?” she asked trying to clear her eyes to take in the concept.

“The very same. I’ll tell you all about that one day. But the goddess Aphrodite contacted me and asked me to save her priestesses when the city fell. Not all would come with me, but over a hundred did. They established a modest temple and still carry on the same ministry they did in Troy. Oh, some have left the temple and have married or gone to explore some new area. And there have been some number of people who have joined their priesthood for a time. Essentially, they still do what they were doing in Troy.”

“Which is?”

“They have sex with anyone who is lonely, horny, or just wants to have a nice cuddle with a beautiful naked woman. And they do not discriminate based on race, national origin, sex, or religion.”

“You mean they are like holy prostitutes?”

“No. The basic premise of prostitution is the acceptance of payment for sexual services. Aphrodite’s servants have sex with anyone who needs it or wants it because that is what Aphrodite wanted. Remind me to tell you the story of the Propoetides sometime. They lost their way and began collecting money for the sexual favors they offered in Aphrodite’s temple. She turned them to stone. The thing is, the priestesses of Aphrodite all know Aphrodite is not here in Areola. They don’t try to convert people to the religion of Aphrodite or of the Greek pantheon. They simply carry out their mission as they have done since before the fall of Troy.”

“Wow! That’s deep. So, there aren’t Christians and Jews, and Moslems and Buddhists and all the others here?”

“Oh, many people have carried their customs into Areola with them and they are widely shared. There is a period when everyone agrees to have a winter festival and they share Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice, um… I can’t remember all of them. It’s pretty hard to say we do this every winter since there isn’t a calendar here. We don’t really have seasons. If someone has a desire for snow, they can go to the other side of the lake and up a hill and find snow. If they want fall colors, they will find trees with falling leaves over there somewhere. But they don’t really define themselves as Christian or Moslem any more than they define themselves as African or European or Asian. We are who we are. We all know that we entered a different dimension and the gods of Olympus, the gods of India, the god of the Jews or the Moslems, Jesus, or Buddha aren’t here. Oh, we may still honor all those gods, but they aren’t here.”

“But you’re here,” she said. She started squirming a bit more and soon had my cock in her hand. Not long after that, it was in her pussy. “This,” she breathed. “This is my religion.”

I have to admit, I wondered if it was my religion, too.

Our conversation put me in mind of my old friend Issa. There were times I really wished I could sit down and talk with him, just to get some advice. Did I really need a religion in Areola? Am I doing the right thing by trying to leave earth behind? Does he enjoy sex as much as I do?

I’d looked for him in India three or four centuries AC. I found a tomb in the north that had a statue that was obviously Issa. I think I’ve mentioned that a demon’s body bears the scars of his battles. I’ve been fortunate. I have a few minor scars. Two where I was shot—one in the side and one in the butt. There are a couple of small scars where I was nicked by a sword. And, of course, the chip out of my horn where a monster demon tried to take off my head with an axe. Issa had distinguishing scars from his crucifixion. Nail scars in his hands and feet. A jagged scar in his side from a spear. These scars were clearly defined on the statue at his tomb.

It was a sad day for me to realize I’d missed him. Of course, I knew he wasn’t buried there. It takes a lot to kill a demon and Issa was very good at resurrecting himself. In fact, the old man who showed me the tomb and told me stories about Issa’s life in India confided to me that “We know the tomb is empty, but we honor the thought.”

I’d met a few demons in my 4,000 years. We don’t exactly seek each other out. There was Maureen, my business partner in the winery. We didn’t really speak anymore. I’d signed over all my share of the winery to her and she was doing well. She’d finally stopped consuming souls most of the time. There had been a few I was sure she’d taken, but she was almost civilized these days.

Speaking of civilized demons, the Queen was another. I’d had to inform her that our trip to space was indefinitely postponed as the ship was not ready. She’d sighed and then said, “Well, I’ll see you around someplace.” A week later, I was invited to attend the royal funeral. I went, out of respect for the family. But, like Issa, I knew it wasn’t her in the coffin. I had a feeling that if I looked in a brothel, I’d find her catching up on the past forty years without the diet of sex she longed for.

There’d been the monster summoned to attempt to kill me in the desert. He was psychically chained to his master and when Athene instructed me to sever the chain, the demon turned on its master and then dissolved back into the primordial mass he arose from. Not before getting a good swipe at me with his axe.

And then there was Issa. The greatest demon the world has ever seen. Someplace along the line, his followers turned him into a god and created a massive religion around his mythos. I doubted sincerely if he would recognize the practice of the religion. He was certainly moving as far away from it as he could when I last saw him.

And I’d known gods. I’d met and talked to Zeus. In fact, he helped me get my act together when I was only a few weeks or months or years old. Even invited me to come to live on Olympus, but I was still young and adventurous. And if I’d taken his offer, I wouldn’t have half the wonderful people who had joined me in Areola.

Then there was Ninra and Namri, the god and goddess of Bathra who selected me to build their temple. I really loved Bao and Portia, my wives in Bathra. It was a lesson in mortality to me.

Aphrodite had taken passage with me from Tyre to Cyprus and I’d had to fight off one of Poseidon’s sea monsters before the goddess of lust and love decided to make use of my ready cock to satisfy her lusts. And she had provided others to me over the years, including Deedee, the buxom blonde I’d settled on first as a member of my crew and then discovered she’d been sent by My Lady Goddess.

Oh, there were others. Ningrum in the Indonesian islands. The war god Tu and Tawhirimatea in the South Pacific. Kukulcán of the Mayans and Ixchel, their goddess of love and beauty. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, but you get the idea. I am accustomed to the company of gods.

In most cases, though, there was nothing really worship-worthy. They were created by the summons of people who needed them and rose to their divine status with the same characteristics that their human creators imbued them with. Like I am with the characteristics Pinaruti gave to me. I have goat horns and legs and hooves, and a goat’s sex drive—always horny. Otherwise, rather benign.

I have noticed that as much as the gods thrive on the worship of people, they don’t really care much about people. They are as lost in their little worlds as I am in mine. When people cease to believe in the same character as the one they first summoned, the gods are somewhat relieved. They can separate themselves and their heavenly kingdom from earth and live eternally with no more thought for the people of earth.

All I really wanted was to do the same thing with Areola. I didn’t need worship, but I was extremely protective of my people. I was ready to launch into space in order to keep them safe. I wished I could talk to Issa about that.

It was lonely being a god.

Instead, I talked to Nimia. My first living wife had been my companion since just a few years after I was created. She’d been with me some 4,000 years and still looked as fresh and young as she did when I brought her to the infinity room. And when I was around, she was very nearly as horny as this old goat. I say ‘when I was around’ because I don’t know how horny she is when I’m not around. It seems, however, that all my wives, possessions, and concubines always have the appearance of being fully sated and satisfied women.

“My darling, do we have a religion here in Areola?” I asked.

“Ah, you’ve been talking to Artemisia,” Nimia responded.

“How did you know?”

“She has an inquisitive mind and an undying devotion to Bob. I think she went to the temple hoping she would find a way to worship you.”

“Is this going to be a problem?”

“Is Zhi a problem?”

“Zhi? Of course not! She is the most loyal and faithful of any of my subjects. I trust my life to her.”

“Exactly. Did you notice that you did not call her a wife, a possession, a concubine, or a priestess?” Nimia asked.

“Well, she’s not exactly. She’s more like a… a… uh…”

“I believe the word you want is devotee,” Nimia said. “There is nothing in Areola or the natural world that she loves so much as her devotion to Bob. You taught her. You loved her. You encouraged her. And the meaning of her life is Bob.”

“And you think Artemisia is like that as well?”

“If not today, then tomorrow,” Nimia said. “Every thought she has is how to better be Bob’s woman. No, I don’t mean she wants to usurp the place of any of your wives or possessions. She simply wants to be the best she can possibly be for Bob. She is devoted to you. Please, my loving husband, never break her trust. She has placed her entire being in your hands.”

“She’s not a possession of mine,” I defended.

“No. You are a possession of hers.”

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 ١٥,٠٠٠ 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.

That was a preview of Bob's Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon--Volume 3. To read the rest purchase the book.

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