admitted

said, walking over to the table and looking down. The papers were covered in columns with notations and numbers by them. They also were covered in equations, most of them scratched, rubbed or in some cases ripped, out. It was pretty clear that math was not Christel's strong suit.
She pulled one of the papers around to her and read it, then blanched.
"Oh, my God," she exclaimed. "You use single-entry bookkeeping?"
"What?" Christel said.
"Single entry," Megan replied, shaking her head. "You've got both your expenses and your income on the same line. Not to mention mixing up your purchases and your use. No wonder you've been having problems."
"How else do you do it?" Christel asked, bewildered.
"Okay, okay," Megan said, dropping into a cross-legged position next to the desk. "You've got food purchases here and a new shipment of cloth. Not to mention housekeeping items and cleaning supplies. By the way, can I get some new pillows?"
"What happened to the ones you have?" Christel asked, angrily.
"They got . . . damaged. Look, what you do is separate this out by category . . ."
* * *
For the next two days Christel led her over the accounts, although it was quite often the other way around. It turned out that the woman was responsible for managing all of the needs of the harem. She had to track, and account for, all of the food that was consumed, the supply of bedding, the raw materials the girls used in their sewing, their "feminine" supplies and everything else that went into a functioning harem.
By the second day, Christel was in a more jovial mood. Megan hadn't been lying when she said she knew something about accounting. It was clear that the younger girl was far better at organizing the accounts than Christel had ever been.
"The worst part is that Paul is always checking on them," Christel admitted early the next day. "He wants me to account for every single item and explain why they were used. The food budget is the worst. He's always harping about how much food the girls eat. So one time I cut them back and then they didn't have enough and were complaining."
"Well, from the looks of some of them they could use a diet," Megan noted. "But not all. What we need