Author: John Vining

"We're Your Harem... Didn't You Know?"

About: Poor Charlie Evans--a Mama's Boy if ever there was one! It was bad enough he felt like such a hick in the big town and around the fancy house he'd inherited, but he was 23 years old and had never gone beyond kissing a girl! And even that he'd bungled...

When he found himself with four gorgeous tenants, all ready and expecting to fulfill his every wish, Charlie realized that his education was at hand. If he didn't bungle it...

Excerpt:

A sense of foreboding closed over Charlie as he remembered Mr. Reynolds' remark that the will could probably be broken if brought into court on the grounds that it was an inducement to immorality and, for that reason, was against the public interest, but he advised Charlie not to do it because the resulting scandal would blacken his late grandfather's reputation. That was when the mixture of envy and distaste had appeared in the lawyer's smooth voice as well as his manner, and an intuitive understanding of why it was there came to Charlie although he didn't want to believe it.

“I didn't realize my grandfather was that generous,” he said. “And I don't see how I can afford so much. I didn't inherit anything except this house and three other buildings, and I can't spend money on you if I don't have it.”

“Don't worry,” Button interjected. “We'll be easy on you because we have too much sense to kill the goose that is going to lay our golden eggs. But don't get the wrong idea about Pops. He wasn't generous, he was an old lecher who made us earn every penny we got out of him. It's just that we liked what our part of the deal gave us enough to be willing to earn it the way he wanted us to. We intend to do the same thing with you.”

“I don't understand,” he said. “How can you earn money from me?”

She looked mischievous, as though she were a child about to spring a slightly naughty surprise on an unwary stranger. “Why, Charlie!” she exclaimed. “Didn't you know you inherited a harem along with the rest of the property?”

He didn't know that, and had never imagined any such thing could be possible. “What harem?” he asked, puzzled.

“This one.” She waved her hand to include herself and the three other girls. “We're the harem you inherited. We came with this house, like the furniture.”

That was entirely too much for Charlie. He gulped, and stared at the other girls, hoping desperately that one of them would explain what Button really meant. They all stared back and, gradually, the realization came to him that she meant exactly what she had said. Fantastic as it sounded, and through some arrangement that was a complete mystery to him, Charlie Evans actually had inherited a harem.

Now it was up to him to decide what he could do with it.