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Author's Note: "The Harem on the Hill" is part of an ongoing reader-shaped serial narrative, updated weekly-ish. To catch up on the several months of additional content, and to get a vote in shaping the latest story choices, check out the info on my DeviantArt page: https://www.deviantart.com/maverickthewriter/journal/Serial-Preview-818531396. PS: I left the original choices in, with the winner bold and italicized, so you can decide for yourself where the voters went right or wrong . Part I You sit at your computer and click through the feeds from 32 closed-circuit video cameras. Eight cover the perimeter of your estate, including the indoor/outdoor pool, tennis court, carport and surrounding grounds; ten secure the first floor, including the entryway, kitchen, breakfast nook, study, and the living and dining rooms; while another eight show images of the upstairs bedrooms, game room, and loft. The ones you pay the closest attention to, however, are the six new ones covering your brand new basement. Of course, it’s only a basement in the sense that it’s underground and part of your home. “Compound” is probably more fitting. Satisfied that the cameras are well-placed and their pictures clear, you lean back in your chair and smile. People assume you’re retired and living the good life, counting dividend checks and whiling away the hours at your remote palatial estate. In truth, you’ve never been busier. You’ve done more work in the past year, hard physical labor, than the rest of your life combined--and have loved every minute of it. Mark Twain once said, “find a job you enjoy and you’ll never work a day in your life.” He should have said “jobs.” Over the past twelve months you’ve been an architect, a carpenter, a plumber, an engineer, a researcher, a private investigator, and a hacker. None of those professions ever appeared on your “what I want to be when I grow up” lists in grade school, but you cherished every hat you wore, knowing the ends would justify the multifaceted means. Especially now with the ends so close. You take a fat and well-worn spiral notebook from your desk and flip through. Each page features a collage of photos, articles, and pencil-scribbled notes. To the uninitiated, it would appear to be a scrapbook cobbled together by a High School girl--chock full of candid photos and even more candid assessments of her classmates (“a bitch,” “rather stupid,” “smutty”), but you know better. What you hold in your hands is far more important than some teenager’s wanton musings. It’s your bible. You reach the last page on which three names are circled: Tabitha Reynolds, Bernadette Muncy and Tina Jordan. You don’t need a refresher—you probably know more about these girls than their families--but you flip to each girl’s section in the journal out of habit. One of them is about to win the lottery. Tabitha Reynolds is an auburn-haired beauty standing nearly six-feet tall. She is undoubtedly the prettiest of the three, but you initially discounted her because of her stature. “Healthy,” “big-boned,” and “Amazonian” were a few of the words you scribbled to describe her; “intimidating” could have been another. She’s more women than most men would dare to handle. Of course, that may be why she spends most evenings at home playing video games and noshing chips. A gym rat by day, Tabitha turns couch potato at night, and the daily gym visits that keep her lazy lifestyle in check have begun to fail. Last you saw, her leotard had grown tantalizingly tight. Bernadette Muncy is a bespectacled blonde that works at the local library. Stern and conservatively dressed, Bernadette accessorizes perfectly with the dusty tomes standing rigid on the shelves. As per convention, she spends her nights at home, alone with her cats, reading classic literature. But there’s something about her that suggests she has more to offer than anonymity. After hours, Bernadette slips from her finicky façade, letting her hair down literally and figuratively. She darts around her living room with her feline friends, playing “air violin” to surprisingly loud classical music, and though she spends much of her time reading, her bedtime docket consists of Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Madame Bovary. On more than one occasion, you’ve witnessed her struggle to hold a weighty volume with one hand as her other disappears beneath the sheets. Tina Jordan is the wild-card. The petite and mousy bob-haired brunette is the only girl in your journal you don’t have a great read on and, ironically, is the only one you’ve actually met. She works as a waitress at a small coffee shop you frequent that’s almost always empty—just the way you like it. At first you thought she was aloof, but she’s just shy. She’ll talk if you invite it, but unlike the cheerily fake platitudes espoused by most tip-hungry hostesses, she’s content to keep quiet while she keeps your coffee hot. You’ve considered asking her out, but know now is not the time. You’re not sure if that time will ever come…which is why she’s on your short list. If nothing else, you’d love to rescue her from that hell-hole hovel she battens herself inside every night. You close the notebook. As disparate as the girls seem, they’re similar in all the ways that matter. They each live alone, but more importantly they’re loners—at least relative to their hyper-connected millennial brethren. None are active on Twitter or Instagram, and only Tabitha has a Facebook account (Which hasn’t been active in months. Perhaps she’s waiting until she loses those pesky new pounds?). No boyfriends. No nosy family. No burdensome jobs with heavy responsibilities. (In fact, none of the girls seem particularly ambitious or upwardly mobile.) No visible tattoos or major vices. Each girl is a clean slate, primed and ready for someone to leave their mark. That’s where you come in. You flip back and forth between them. The moment you have worked so hard for has finally come. Which girl do you choose? A.) Tabitha Reynolds B.) Bernadette Muncy C.) Tina Jordan