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Subject: {ASSM} The Harem {MichaelD}(MF, FF, sf, mc, nc, viol)(2/2)
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 06:10:06 -0400
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The Harem
Copyright 2000 by MichaelD38@aol.com.
Free redistribution permitted; no commercial use without authorization
---
IX.
"Name?"
"Sayeed. Shareena Sayeed."
"Age?"
"Twenty-two."
"Height?"
"One-seventy."
"Weight?"
"Um, I'm not sure. Maybe fifty-five or sixty."
"Hair and eyes?"
"Right now it's strawberry blond, but naturally it's kind of brown. Eyes are
hazel."
"Occupation?"
"She's a sales clerk at Nordstrom-Marcus, at the Main Street Mall. They
haven't seen her either."
The officer punched a few keys on his terminal, and Shareena's ID card picture
came up.
"This her?"
"Yeah."
"When did you last see her?"
"At the Neutrino Muck Club. It's on 24th Avenue. Two nights ago. We met
there, hung out for a while, then I left with someone else. The bouncer told
me she went home alone, but I never saw her."
"Has she disappeared like this before?"
"No. She's not like that. I mean, sometimes she'll spend the night somewhere
else, but she's never just vanished like this."
"And you say you found her purse near the club?"
"In the gutter. Like someone grabbed her and she dropped it."
"Well, we don't know that. She dropped it, apparently, but don't jump to
conclusions."
"What are you going to do?"
"She goes in the computer. You have to understand that we get a lot of these
around here. Girls will just disappear like this, then show up a few months
later. Is she into narcotics, hallucinogens, anything like that?"
Stayci squirmed.
"She was into tropicana. She liked to do it when we went clubbing."
The officer grunted.
"We think there may be some weird stuff going around. We've had a rash of
disappearances like this over the last year or two. When the girls finally
show up again, they claim they can't remember where they've been or what they
did. Our theory right now is that they might have taken something that induced
an amnesiac state. So they wander around until they regain their memory."
"For months?"
"It varies. Some come out of it after only a few days, some after six months
or more."
"But if that happened to her, how did her purse end up in the gutter like
that?"
"She might have forgotten she was even carrying it. She dropped it and kept
going."
"But why is it only happening to women?"
"We're not sure. It's possible someone is going around deliberately providing
this drug, whatever it is. Was she doing trop the other night?"
"Yeah."
"Someone might have slipped her a can spiked with this stuff."
"So what do I do?"
"All I can tell you is that we'll keep a watch out for her. She's not the only
one missing. If you're really concerned about this, you might go looking
yourself."
---
X.
"Sir?"
He looked up from his desk, the voice from the terminal drawing his attention
away from a marketing report on his company's latest line of processor cores.
The face on the screen belonged to one of the security men who worked for his
other "enterprise." He hit the privacy switch on one side of the terminal,
blocking out all other interruptions.
"Yes?"
"Someone filed a missing person's report on the new girl this morning."
"Who?"
"A woman named Stayci Chin. Apparently her roommate. According to the report,
she found the girl's purse near where we grabbed her."
"Are they still fixated on the 'amnesia drug' theory?"
"As near as we can tell."
He logged into the local police network and pulled up Stayci's ID file. He
shouldn't have been able to do this, as it was a restricted database, but his
company had sold the system hardware to the Police Department, and he had made
sure there were plenty of back doors into the network.
Stayci's picture came up on the screen. Terran Chinese ancestry, it looked
like, though it was diluted by a few other unidentifiable bloodlines. Long
dark brown hair and blue-gray eyes. He felt a familiar twinge as he looked at
her.
"Sir?"
"What?"
"Do you want us to do anything?"
"Grab her. Bring her in."
"The Chin woman?"
"Yes."
"Understood."
---
XI.
She awoke where she had fallen, in a pile of cushions on the balcony. The
Sultan was gone, and many of the other women were asleep. Though it appeared
to be mid-morning, she felt no need to rise. What responsibilities did she
have here, after all? She would bathe eventually, then have something to eat.
For now, she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
A vague sense of unease hung in the back of her mind. She wanted to ignore it.
She opened her eyes, looking toward the pool, where several women washed each
other. Why did all of this seem so strange?
Realizing that further sleep was out of the question, she sat up. A peach, she
thought. There was something about a peach. She stood, walking toward the
eating room, where fresh platters of food awaited. She looked for a peach, and
found one in a basket. She sniffed it, then took a bite. It tasted good, so
she ate the rest of it. She saw an orange amongst the other fruit and picked
it up.
She sniffed the orange as she had done to the peach, and the smell seemed to
trigger a visceral need inside her. She sniffed again, stronger now. The
smell was familiar, but it was missing something. She squeezed the orange in
her hand. The juice ran down her arm, and she sniffed it, drawing a few drops
into her nose. The acidic fluid caused her to her sneeze several times. The
orange smelled like what she wanted, but it wasn't quite right.
"Tropicana," she said to herself. What did that mean? It had something to do
with the smell of oranges.
She dropped the crushed orange to the floor and walked around to the bathing
area. She stepped down into the pool. The other women welcomed her, and she
joined the group.
When it was her turn to be bathed, she closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel
of a dozen soft hands rubbing over her body. One of them began washing between
her legs, and she shuddered. This was good. Why was she trying so hard to be
unhappy here?
She rinsed herself off when they were done, and stepped out of the pool. A
pile of soft towels sat on a gilded cart near the pool. She took one, drying
herself. She rubbed her hair with the towel, and the action felt familiar and
comforting. Then her hands touched the spot at the back of her neck.
She felt the scar for a moment, and the daze she had been in for most of the
morning began to melt away. She looked around the room as if seeing it for the
first time. The other women seemed like children, their faces blank and
unquestioning. Like robots.
Robots, she thought. They're robots. Something sharp at the back of her head
stung her, and she reached around involuntarily, scratching at the bare spot.
She felt the same scar that had been there the day before, but now she noticed
something new. A bruise, just above it. She must have hit her head when she
had fallen the night before.
The peach. Where was it? She dropped the towel and walked quickly over to the
balcony. The peach was where she had left it, hanging in midair above the
gardens. She stared hard at the image below her. Contrasted as it now was
with the peach, she could tell there was something artificial about it, about
the whole view of the city.
The sting in her head returned, but something was missing. The alien force in
her head, the mental commands she had been battling for two days were gone.
She thought about the Sultan. Another sting, but none of the slavish devotion
she had felt the previous night.
She looked out at the city again. It's not real, she thought. It's a vid. A
video screen. She had noticed the inconsistencies in the image before, but the
thing in her head had forced her to ignore them. All at once, the vast open
feeling the image had given her collapsed. She wasn't gazing out of some grand
palace--she was confined in some sort of weird room.
But where was she? And what was this thing in her head? She tried to think
back before she had awoken in the harem room, but her thoughts disappeared into
mush.
Who am I, she thought. I am not Greta. My name is--
Shareena. The feel of the name was the exact opposite of Greta. My name is
Shareena.
The name gave her an anchor, an anchor attached to something at the bottom of
the mush. She pulled, but couldn't quite bring anything up. She looked down
at herself, feeling her body, and her hands came to rest on the rings in her
navel.
The twinkling of the little gems in the rings pried open a crack in her
amnesia.
A store. A little shop, in the Mall. She had gone in with--someone--and lay
down on a bed. A man had come and pierced three holes through her navel. She
picked out the bejeweled rings because they reminded her of Brendon.
Another crack. Brendon had a guitar, enameled in the precise color of the gems
in the rings. He had played songs for her on that guitar, had sung to her
after they made love. Then he had taken the guitar and run off to join a band.
She felt a tear running down her cheek and looked up at the harem room. She
didn't quite understand everything yet, but she didn't belong here. She knew
that as much as she knew anything.
---
XII.
Stayci spent most of the day wandering through the neighborhood around the
club, but she found no sign of Shareena whatsoever.
The longer she searched, the more her mind drifted from the task. The police
officer's explanation somehow didn't fit with Shareena's behavior that night.
He thought someone had slipped her a trop can spiked with this weird drug. But
Shareena was very picky about her sources, having taken some bad trips early in
her habit. She wouldn't buy her stuff from just anyone, and she certainly
wouldn't have taken a hit from some random can someone gave her in a club. She
might have had a habit, but she wasn't that desperate. Trop wasn't expensive,
and Shareena made enough at the Mall to buy hers from people she trusted.
Furthermore, as she thought more about it, Stayci remembered when Shareena had
taken her hit that night. It had been a black can with a little pink devil on
it, the trademark of her usual dealer, a guy named Paulo. Either Paulo had
slipped something into his latest batch--which she thought unlikely, since
Shareena was one of his best customers--or the police officer's theory just
didn't wash.
As the sun set, she walked slowly back to the apartment, frustrated. She
didn't notice the black van right away, but she spotted it when she crossed the
last street before her building. Black, glossy, expensive. Then she noticed
something else--it was gravitic, which meant real money. Far more than
normally ever showed up around here. Even the pimps and the wiseguys didn't
drive stuff like that. Gravitics were for the suits in the city center.
She slowed her pace, watching the van warily. The windows were tinted far too
darkly for her to see inside. When she got within a few meters of the van, the
side door began to slide open. She backed away, preparing to run at the first
sign of trouble.
The stunner bolt, coming as it did from directly behind her, was a complete
surprise.
---
XIII.
Shareena was sitting in the eating area when the eunuchs entered the harem
room. She heard them before she saw them, heard the excited voices of the
other women chattering about another new girl.
The eunuchs passed her, carrying an unconscious woman on a padded pallet.
Something clicked in her head when she saw the woman's face.
She stood, following the other women as the eunuchs carried the girl to her
room. The eunuchs shut the door and shooed the harem girls away. The small
crowd dispersed, but the women continued to discuss this development.
"Two new girls in two days!"
"She's so cute!"
Shareena stayed by the room, watching the eunuchs leave and the women return to
the main rooms. When they were out of sight, she slipped into the new girl's
room.
The eunuchs had laid her on a bed much like Shareena's. The girl remained
unconscious, even when Shareena nudged her.
Shareena turned the girl's head to one side. At the base of her skull, she
found a small shaved patch, with a red incision scar in the center. She turned
her head back and studied the girl's face.
An image came into her mind. A disordered room, totally unlike the harem but
familiar. Strange clothes everywhere. This girl, standing in a doorway.
"What do you think? The Neutrino Muck tonight, or somewhere else?"
The image slipped away, and she couldn't get it back. Shareena shook her head.
There was something terrible about this, but she couldn't get a grip on it.
She knew this woman from somewhere, and the idea that she was now here in the
harem angered her.
Shareena realized she was crying. She took the woman's hand and squeezed it.
She didn't want her to be here. Something awful had happened, and Shareena
wanted to protect her from it. She crawled into bed with the woman and held
her tightly.
The woman awoke about an hour later. Shareena felt her stir, and sat up. The
woman's eyes fluttered open and came to rest on Shareena only after a few
seconds of disorientation. Though the face was familiar, the vacuous look on
it was not.
"Where am I?"
"The harem. But I don't know where this is."
The woman sat up.
"Who are you?"
"Shareena."
The woman's eyes lost their focus for a second, and she put her hand to her
head as if in pain.
"What is your name?"
The woman didn't respond immediately.
"My name . . . is Okiko."
No, Shareena thought, that wasn't right.
"No, it isn't. It's something else. Think."
Another look of pain flashed over the woman's face.
"No, it's Okiko. It is."
She looked over at the door to the hallway.
"What is out there?"
"The harem rooms."
The woman rose, and something in the way she moved pricked another bubble in
Shareena's head.
"Stayci. Your name is Stayci."
The woman put her hand to her head again.
"Stop saying these things to me. You're making my head hurt."
Stayci got off the bed, and walked to the door. Shareena followed her out, and
tried to take her hand. Stayci pulled away from her, looking at Shareena in
fear. Then some of the other harem girls approached, greeting her. Stayci
smiled, seeming to relax, and went down into the bathing area.
Shareena watched her go, feeling powerless and confused.
---
XIV.
He didn't often go down into the harem two nights in a row, but neither did he
often take two girls in two days. This time would be especially sweet, taking
the girl who had tried to find her friend, only to end up captured herself. He
thought of making the two perform for him, making them make love to each other
as he watched. They would do it, just as they would do anything else he told
them to.
The same excited giggles he always heard greeted him as he entered the harem,
the girls circling around him to see what he wanted.
"Bring me Okiko."
---
XV.
Shareena didn't approach Stayci again, but stayed near her, watching her fall
in with the other women as Shareena had her first evening. It pained her to
watch, but the more she did, the more she was convinced this woman was a friend
of hers, a close friend. That she didn't seem to know Shareena only further
proved to her that someone had done something terrible to them.
Then the excited voices had announced the arrival of the Sultan.
"Bring me Okiko."
Stayci rose from the tangle of bodies, following several other women, and went
to him. He glanced briefly at Shareena, but his attention seemed to be on
Stayci. She lay on the cushions before him, and he knelt to take her.
Pain shot through Shareena's head, and another image burst forth. That same
disordered room. A bed. Stayci lying there with a strange man with long hair
and tattoos, both of them nude. Shareena angry at them.
"Jesus, guys, you think you can make a little more noise? I'm trying to sleep
here!"
All at once, the memories flooded back into her. Her and Stayci's apartment.
Her job at the Mall. The Neutrino Muck. That night at the club. And the men
in the black van who had taken her.
She looked around frantically, her eyes coming to rest on a tall candlestick on
the table of food. She grabbed it, and rushed at the Sultan. His attention,
and that of the other women, was entirely on Stayci. Shareena swung the
candlestick as hard as she could, connecting with the back of his head. He
fell, unconscious, onto Stayci.
As one, every woman in the room shrieked in horror, throwing their hands to
their head as if in excruciating pain. Many of them blacked out, dropping to
the floor. The others rushed forward, trying to hug the Sultan, to cradle his
limp body. Stayci as well seemed horrified, shaking him, trying to wake him
up.
Shareena dove into the mass of bodies, grabbing Stayci and pulling her out,
though she kicked and fought against her.
"No! No! Leave me with him!"
Shareena lost her grip on Stayci's arm, and Stayci leapt back toward the
Sultan.
Then Shareena remembered what had triggered her awakening. Steeling herself,
she swung the candlestick against the back of Stayci's head. She dropped
forward, but the other women ignored her, intent as they were on the Sultan.
Shareena dragged Stayci's unconscious form away from the cluster of whimpering
women. She pulled her away from the harem room, down the hallway the Sultan
had entered from. Not sure what lay beyond the doors, she sat down, holding
Stayci's head in her lap.
"Wake up, oh God, please wake up."
The Sultan remained unconscious, and some of the women had begun to wail in
grief. A minute or so later, Stayci's eyes opened.
"What . . . what?"
"Your name is Stayci. Not Okiko. Your name is Stayci. You're my friend, and
we live together on 24th Avenue. You work for Klinsmaan-Tokio as a
receptionist. You're not a harem girl."
"I'm . . . where are we?"
"I don't know. I don't know what this is. But we have to get out of here."
Stayci sat up, rubbing her head.
"You . . . I know you. I was looking for you. You disappeared, and I was
trying to find you."
"I know. But we have to get out of here before he wakes up."
The two women stood up, and Shareena pushed open the doors at the end of the
hall. She found another hallway beyond, with another set of doors at the end.
Stayci followed her. Beyond the doors, they found a broad colonnaded walkway.
Several eunuchs stood at attention near a sedan chair, but they ignored the two
women. At the far end of the walkway was a blank wall, but as they approached,
part of the wall slid away, revealing an elevator.
The elevator car had no controls, and when the door shut, they felt the car
move upward. Ten or twenty seconds later, it opened to an antiseptic bathing
area.
"What is this?" Stayci asked.
"I don't know."
The two of them passed through the bathing area into a bedroom suite. Shareena
now realized that both of them were still nude. They found an assortment of
clothing in a closet off the bedroom, and dressed quickly. The man was taller
than both of them, but his clothes fit well enough.
---
XVI.
Oriented as they were toward preventing intruders, the estate's security
systems were unable to stop the two women from escaping. They flagged down a
car on the main road and returned to the city.
The resulting scandal might have been far less intense, might have been
suppressed entirely, had Shareena's aim been slightly worse. The man had
enough money and influence to thwart official inquires, and both women would
likely have disappeared again (permanently, this time) before they could make
too much trouble.
As it was, Shareena had put the man into a coma, and not until the
investigators entered the harem would he be discovered, half-dead from lack of
attention. By then, it was too late to hide what he had been doing.
The authorities returned the harem girls and "eunuchs" to their lives, though
most would require months or years of psychotherapy. The harem rooms, a huge
other world discovered under the estate, were demolished. Proceeding in
absentia, the local courts indicted and convicted the man for his crimes.
Civil lawsuits then depleted most of his vast assets.
For six months, the doctors attempted to return the man to consciousness, but
the damage seemed too extensive. Something had to replace what Shareena had
destroyed. Eventually, one of the junior doctors had an idea.
Most people who learned of it thought it appropriate.
---
XVII.
He awoke with a mild headache. The sense of emptiness was so profound that he
didn't even recognize it for a few moments. Where--no, who was he? He sat up,
looking at his hands, his body, as if seeing them for the first time. He wore
a plain blue jumpsuit. A metal bracelet, stenciled with a nine-digit number,
was locked to his left wrist. He pulled on it, turning it one way, then
another. It seemed familiar, yet he had no recollection of it at all.
He lay on a plain bed in a small metal chamber. A steel sink and toilet sat
next to the bed, and a barred door took up most of the opposite wall. The
walls were dark metal, and he could hear harsh voices outside the door. A
heavy, foul odor hung in the air, as if he were confined in the world's biggest
locker room.
He swung his feet to the floor and stood. Even the act of standing seemed new
and unusual. He leaned against the door and looked out of his room.
It was a hallway, with other barred doors like his, and it extended beyond his
vision in both directions. He saw other men, all of them dressed as he was,
leaning against their doors.
Several of them saw him and laughed.
"Hey, brother, you remember who you are today?"
He shook his head. Something about this seemed familiar, but he couldn't get a
grip on it. The men laughed again.
His head hurt. He didn't like this, but something in his mind insisted he
belonged here. He lay down on his bed, hoping the feeling would go away.
THE END
---
The Harem
Copyright 2000 by MichaelD38@aol.com.
Free redistribution permitted; no commercial use without authorization
Michael
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