The Greatest Harem

A Lem/T-Mec Production

Story written by Lem

CHAPTER ONE

The Harem was a room of polished marble columns and floors, lined with tapestries. The floor was decorated with a beautiful mosaic pattern that could not be seen under the countless silk pillows, the only available furniture. And the pillows could barely be seen beneath the room's denizens, 300 of the most beautiful women in the world, or, more specifically, the 300 most beautiful women in the world.

Sara should know. She was one of them as of this morning. A shrouded man bought her for seven dinars in the slave marketplace where her parents had left her. What she had expected wasn't good. What she got was to be escorted to a bath, the first in her life that wasn't in the river. It was a bath better than most people could hope for in her whole lives. Its basin was nine feet square. She didn't even have to scrub. The steam from the perfumed water cleansed her.

She lay there for an hour, then she noticed a shadow pass over her. "Not as bad as you had feared, eh?" She turned around. It was a woman, about five years older than herself, though many years older in experience if her eyes were a measurement.

"Oh, you are beautiful!" Sara exclaimed. The woman, with bright curly red hair, a glowing face, and a beautiful green harem costume, certainly was.

"Ha, ha, thank you. It's always the new ones who pay the real compliments. But you're beautiful yourself, or you wouldn't be here."

"Do you mean that?" she asked sincerely. It made the older woman smile. Sara was tall and still newly voluptuous, her whole body full with fresh sexuality. Her large bosom heaved up and down in the water, and her mouth pursed lips that were nearly as full. "Everyone's certainly being nice to me."

"It's not so much their job to be nice to you; it's more your job to be nice to the Sultan."

"The Sultan!" Sara bolted up from the tub, and even Tanzi's eyes went wide at the sight of the young woman's bosom wearing nothing but perfume. "I didn't know this was the Sultan's palace!"

"Who else could afford all this?" And who else could afford all that, Tanzi thought to herself.

Sara's eyes remained peeled on Tanzi's as some attendants hurriedly put a towel on her. "What is he like? He's very wealthy."

"That much is sure," replied Tanzi. "As for the rest, you will find it out soon enough. He would not have purchased you if he didn't plan to be with you, probably tonight or sooner."

"You mean..."

Tanzi eyed her sympathetically. "Surely you are not that innocent."

"Will he be...kind?"

"Oh, he's not what you'd call violent, but he's not exactly giving, either. He's too accustomed to taking."

"He is handsome," said Sara. "I'd always wished it would be with someone handsome, and kind."

"If wishes would come true, I guarantee you this would be a very different world."

A masculine voice broke in. "And if you ever learned your place, Tanzi, it would be even more miraculous than a world of wishes." The Sultan, a young, fit man, tall, with a mustache that seemed to be made of black iron, had entered.

Tanzi stepped back reluctantly but wisely, while Sara was rooted to the spot in awe of his presence. He stepped up to her, and soon the towel that covered her was a memory. "Yes, you are perfect. I believe I have found my woman for the week, perhaps two." He began by running his hand down her arm, heedless of the presence of Tanzi and others. "You have what I want, my dark haired beauty, especially when you wear nothing..."

His hand stopped at hers, pulling it up for examination. He glared at ring with a large blue stone on it. For a long moment, he said nothing. "Do you want me to remove the ring?" she asked nervously.

He grabbed her wrist and whisked the ring off before charging out of the harem, leaving Sara both relieved and disappointed. "He didn't like me?"

"Actually, I think he just liked the ring more. Where did you get it?"

"I don't know, I've had it as long as I can remember. Do you think its worth something?" Tanzi kicked a few pillows on the floor until she uncovered a ruby half the size of her foot. She held it up to Sara with some effort, for it was quite heavy.

"Let me give you an idea. This is the kind of stone he leaves on the floor. It could buy you half a castle. There are at least eight like it around this harem."

"Then what could he want with such a bauble?"

"I wish I knew."

"As you said, 'If wishes could come true'..." Tanzi nodded in agreement.

In his private bedchamber, the Sultan put the ring down on a mantelpiece and began leafing through a daunting pile of scrolls. He rolled out one of the oldest and studied the picture on it. It was identical to the ring he had just procured.

He studied the ancient text carefully but hurriedly. "By the sun, I have finally found it - and on the hand of a street trollop, no less."

He put the ring on his trembling finger. "I summon you, Genie!"

In a flash of pink smoke, she appeared. She had the appearance a woman in her 20s, with bright blonde hair sparkling eyes, and a red harem-like outfit that left little to the imagination, except for her navel, which was oddly covered. Quite the young beauty, though she seemed oddly heavy set for an air elemental. In fact, she reclined luxuriously on a set of pillows that had materialized with her. Her body was filled out in the way women's bodies often do, not making her lose her shape but simply augmenting it. It was a soft, healthy kind of voluptuousness.

She sat up and raised her hands in a yawn, as if the ring she'd left had been a small tent she was sleeping in. "Sigh...What'll it be, master?"

He was taken aback. "Could you be what came from the ring? Did the Genie send you? Is he your master?"

She shot him a glance. "What makes you think I'm not a genie? You don't think a woman can handle the job?"

"I, I do not understand you. What is a job? How do you 'handle' it?"

"Oh, man, I must really be out of sync. It gets so tedious in that ring for a thousand years. I could see through space and time, of course, but it's all so boring! Until I saw this thing called television. Now I watch it all the time. I got this costume idea from this really cool show about this astronaut, and he finds a Genie, so I thought..." He was staring at her blankly. "Oh, forget it. Let's just get on with the three wishes."

"Three wishes!" He said with awe.

She let out a relieved sigh. "Good, I thought you were gonna be one of those who want service forever. But you're one who was counting on one wish. So yes, three wishes, and then I'm free of my enchantment. So let's make with the wishes, and we can both go home happy." She saw him pondering. "C'mon, we all know what it's going to be."

"You can see the future?"

"No, but I can see the past, and it's always the same. First you want great wealth. Then you want a giant penis. Then you realize the giant penis doesn't solve your romance problems, so you wish for all women to love you, then you realize there's too many of them, and anyway your dick's too big for most of them and you can't get it hard enough anyway..."

"I am already the wealthiest man in the Orient!" He protested. "And if you were so crudely referring to my manhood, it is already of a prodigious size."

For an instant, his clothes disappeared before reappearing. "Just verifying," she said. "Nothing to phone Guinness about, but you're okay."

He began to grow purple with indignity. "And as for women, I have 100 concubines who worship me as a god...and who do not fill the air with lazy vulgarities and unsolicited opinions!"

"Oh, I'm sure they kiss the ground you walk on, Romeo. If you're so hot with the ladies, why don't you stop buying them and get a real girlfriend?"

There was a silence. "I have my first wish," he said coldly.

"Shoot," she said, materializing a book to read in order to demonstrate her indifference. It was like western books, but with no hard cover. Its title, "Cosmopolitan," no doubt referred to the denizens of the cosmos such as herself.

"I wish that you would be stripped of your powers and added to my harem...where I will have you as soon as I have verified your virginity and made you shed considerable pounds."

She put the literature down and glowered at him. "Nice try, but since the point of the three wishes is to grant me freedom, it can't be done. Besides which, you can't wish for two things in one wish, no matter how many 'ands' you put in it. Furthermore, if you had any confidence in yourself, you wouldn't worry how I much experience I or any woman has had. And you should NEVER make fun of someone's size, even if that person is happy with the way they look, which by the way, I happen to be, as are the REAL men whom I give the time of day!"

This stopped the conversation for several minutes. Then he said, "Very well. Here is a wish you cannot deny."

"Shoot."

"I do not need to increase my wealth or power, but I do wish to increase my stature."

"Do continue," she said.

"This palace is impressive, but I have seen bigger. "I want one with all marble floors, walls, and ceilings, priceless tapestries, and eight times my height."

"Very well..."

"Wait!" he said. "First, let me see the castle, so I know you will not cheat me. Then I will wish for it if I am satisfied."

She waved her hand, and in the mist a palace appeared far greater and more exquisite than he had ever imagined. It seemed to be made of white polished glass, with emerald minarets raising proudly above them. All around it was encrusted with jewels, the smallest of which was bigger than he had ever seen in his life, the largest of which had to be too large for two strong men to carry.

The sultan's eyes grew wide as he contemplated it. "Do you wish for it?" she asked quietly.

He thought. "Perhaps. This must be the new seat of my power, standing where the current castle is."

"Done."

"It must have a giant harem."

"Done gladly."

"Then I must have it!" he shouted.

"Then sleep," she said, and a small amount of pink mist was blown in his eyes, closing them for a second. He tried to wave it away, but it had turned into a thin silk veil. He struggled with it for a minute, then darted upright.

He had been sleeping. The sorceress had drugged him! He was prepared to clap his hands and summon his guards, but then he noticed where he was. It was a bedchamber, but not his usual bedchamber. It was wider, with a higher ceiling, and the walls sparkled like marble dappled with gold dust.