Prologue -- Darkness On The Edge Of Town

The hour after bars close for the night was always the most dangerous time to be out on the road. Driver attentiveness was at its lowest, and the percentage of drunks on the road was at its highest. But Kevin didn't have any choice. The gig had gotten out, and the rest of the band had demanded he take them out drinking, and then ferry them home. The back of his car was still loaded up with most of the gear, because the band would've probably pawned the gear off for drugs given half a chance.

It wasn't like they were friends of his -- but they were his bread and butter, at least until his big break came along, which he'd always assumed it never would. He needed them, to keep himself afloat. Most of his life had been spent just adjacent to the luck needed to see prosperity.

But the world was a funny place.

The freeway was mostly empty, but there was a single car on the road ahead of him, a black Escalade, one of those titanic tanks that clogged many of the streets of California, consuming gasoline like nobody's business.

Kev was accustomed to seeing them wobble a little at this time of night, but this one was doing more than a little wobbling, so he slowed down some, backing off enough to give the SUV more than a bit of space.

The extra twenty feet or so likely saved his life.

When the right rear tire of the SUV burst, the vehicle swerved wildly, the driver trying to compensate, attempted to turn into it, and instead, the vehicle rolled over and started cycling into the ditch off to the side of the road. The damage was catastrophic, the vehicle in tatters.

Kev pulled his car over quickly. He didn't have time to think -- he simply wanted to see if the driver had survived. He hadn't even called 911 before he had put his car into park and started sprinting towards the wreck. The Escalade was upside down, the frame of it holding together, although he could see bowing on parts of it. Glass was strewn across the concrete, and gasoline had smeared atop of it.

Only one person was in the car, a woman, hanging upside down, suspended by her seatbelt, the airbags deployed but already deflated, their job done. She hung there, deathly limp, unconscious. Normally, he would've just checked on an accident and let the emergency services handle it, but the gas tank was ruptured, and while he knew enough to know the vehicle wouldn't explode, it could very easily catch fire, which wouldn't be conducive to the health of the woman.

Kev couldn't afford to wait, or, rather, the woman couldn't afford for him to wait.

He reached in and popped the latch on her seatbelt, doing his best to catch her, pulling her from the vehicle. It took some effort, but he pulled her from the vehicle and dragged her away from the wreckage, which had started to burn.

When he had the woman back to the relative safety of next to his own car, he looked back and saw the vehicle erupting into flames. It burned brightly, quickly, and he wondered for a moment if the SUV had been sporting NO2 or some other borderline legal accellerant. The fact that the flames were green entirely slipped his notice.

Behind him, the woman on the ground started to cough. "The fuck just happened?" he heard her say.

"Don't move," Kev said. "I'm going to call 911."

The woman raised a hand and waved it in his direction, and he stopped reaching for his cellphone, not of his own volition. She was in her early fifties, fit but certainly not immune to the rigors of age. She was dressed in a rather atrocious looking track suit, something akin to one of those insipid housewives shows set in New Jersey. Her fingers were covered in rings, gold and jewels, gaudy and borderline ridiculous. Her hair was dyed a deep unnatural shade of red, that of faded blood. She cranked her head up to peer over at the vehicle. "Well, that looks like it would've been fatal. And you pulled me out? Saved my life, you did." There was a spice of accent in her voice, European, British maybe.

Her fingers twitched again and the world shifted.

Kev found that he couldn't move, and while he wasn't sure why he couldn't move, he also didn't feel particularly bothered by it, which he felt in and of itself should bother him more than it currently did. "What's happening to me?"

"Oh, I can't have the police coming and investigating," the woman said, curling her fingers as her wounds disappeared before his eyes. "That's the last fucking thing I need, is attention." She stood up and dusted herself off, looking over at him with a smile. "Be with you in a minute, darling."

She turned to look over at the flaming wreckage of the SUV and waved her hand, coiling her fingers, as the wreckage shrunk down, both the car and the fire growing tiny, the light cast from it fading remarkably quickly. She walked over to it, a small flickering spot of flames in the grass, and she stepped on it. "There. Wouldn't want a wildfire spreading on my account. Now, to deal with you."

Kev shook his head a little bit. "I, uh, I won't say anything to anyone."

The woman smiled, almost a touch wolflike. "Oh I know you won't, darling. I'm going to make sure you don't ever want to say anything to anyone about all of this. I'm going to do you a favor, something that any number of men on this world would sacrifice a small village for."

"A... a favor?"

"Absolutely. You've saved my life. I couldn't have it on my conscience, something like that going unrewarded. A being of infinite power like myself, dying on a fluke because of a blow out? I'd be the laughing stock of the magician community if it ever got out. And those sorts of things always get out. If there's one thing I've learned over thousands of years, secrets never stay buried unless you bury them yourself. So, if you could have anything you ever wanted, and I do mean anything, what would it be?"

"Well, I..."

"Hush, darling. If you use your words, you'll only undersell your true desires, and the price of saving my life shouldn't be cheapened and sullied so. And I don't want you getting some insane idea that I'm a genie, or a witch out to curse you by adhering to the letter and not the spirit. Anything at all is within my power, and I intend to give you a gift in equal of saving my life. Just think of it and..."

The woman closed her eyes, cocking her head to one side, placing one hand on his face as a smile started to creep across her on, and then she started to laugh, softly.

"That is simultaneously both one of the most perverse and most ethical things I think I've ever seen inside of someone's mind. I utterly adore it. It will take some time, something of that scale, but your wish is granted, and what a doozy it will be. It's a shame I won't be around to watch it all unfold. We will never see each other again, Kevin Bishop, but never let it be said that Morgana Le Fay doesn't repay her debts. Your life is going to change a great deal over the next few months. Enjoy the ride, my boy."

A few seconds later, Kevin found himself staring off into the empty night, pulled over at the side of the road, no sign of the SUV, or the woman, but he knew that it was real, it had been real, he'd been certain of it.

He could still smell the lingering scent of smoke in the air.

Chapter One -- Manic Monday

Six months to the day after the accident, Kevin had almost convinced himself the whole thing had been one mixed-up, sleep-deprived hallucination, something his brain had made up to fill in him falling asleep at the side of the road after trying to drive his drunken bandmates home after another disaster gig.

The band had broken up a few months after, and since then, he'd been working on commission, doing contract work, mostly for film students and the occasional cheap television producer. It was barely enough to keep his head above water. Hell, he'd been thinking of going down and applying at a McDonald's, if it came to it.

It was all going to shit.

He'd gotten an email offering him a gig, but he needed to come up into the Hollywood Hills to meet the client and discuss the work. Kev generally hated coming up into the hills. It reeked of too much money and not enough common sense. The people up there were always worried about the wrong things, lost in tunnel vision about the most minute detail that truly didn't fucking matter at the end of the day.

The address he'd been given wasn't too far up into the hills. High enough to have a nice view, but not so far as to be wildly inconvenient. Insanely big, however, he thought to himself, as he pulled up to the gate of the estate, rolling down his window so he could push the buzzer.

"Yes?" a female voice said on the other side of the intercom.

"Kevin Bishop. I have an appointment."

"Of course. One second, I'll buzz open the gate."

A few seconds later, the automated gate started to open, and Kevin drove his shitty Corrola up the driveway. And as much as he wanted to be annoyed by the opulence of it, he had to admit that it was actually lovely for what it was. The house was more like a manor, but he had to wonder exactly how many people lived here. The place looked large enough to house a small army. But he saw only one car out in front of the building, a nice shiny new Scarlet Tesla S.

Overwhelmingly, he wasn't angry so much as envious. It seemed a pretty good life.

He hopped out of his car, and grabbed his guitar. He wasn't sure what the gig actually required, but he found it was always good to have an instrument with him in case he needed to put together a melody on the fly. It didn't even seem worth it to lock his car door behind him.

Before he'd even gotten to the door, it opened and a good looking woman in her early 30s walked out and toward him. "Mr. Bishop. So exciting to finally meet you. My name is Elizabeth. Why don't you come in?" She was dressed in a business suit, but the skirt was daringly short, and offered a tantalizing look at her toned legs beneath dark stockings. The top of it also pressed her plump cleavage into a confident neckline that almost seemed to invite him to have a looksee, although he did his level best to keep his eyes matching hers. Her blue eyes seemed genuinely excited to see him, and she offered a hand for him to shake, holding onto it a moment longer than he'd expected her to. She held the door open for him, as he moved into the building. "What do you think of the place?"

"I want to object to it, but I have to admit, the place looks great." He glanced at the painting hanging in the entryway, next to a pair of staircases, one leading upstairs and one leading down. "Is that an actual Picasso?"

"It is. Don't you like it?"

"I do, but it seems a little pretentious to hang it right in the entryway."

She nodded, almost if she was making a note in her mind. "That's a fair point."

"How many bedrooms is this place?"

"Twelve, with I think nineteen bathrooms?"

"You're not sure?"

"It's a new house."

"How many people actually live here?"

"Right now? Almost no one."

"That seems rather silly."

"Oh," she said with a sly smile, one that almost seemed a touch suggestive. "I imagine it will fill up quickly enough. Follow me, please?" She tossed her chocolate colored hair over her shoulder and walked him down a hallway and into a meeting room. There was a long table, with one wall used as a projector screen. She took a seat next to a large wooden box, popping it open just enough to reach her hand in before pulling it out, closing the box before he could see what was inside. "Before we get started, could you try this on?" She held out her hand, a simple ring resting atop of it. It looked like platinum or white gold, with a single stone in the center of it, something like onyx but with smoke blended within the black gem.

"Excuse me?" Kevin frowned a little bit. "Why?"

"It's a gift for you. From the client. But they'd like to be sure it fits before we get started."

It was an odd request, but Kevin needed the money, and it seemed harmless enough. So he took the ring from her and looked it over, just making sure it didn't have any barbs or gimmicks on it. There was an inscription on the inside of it, but it wasn't in any language or even alphabet that he recognized. "On any particular finger?"

"Your ring finger on your right hand, if you please."

He gave the ring one more quick examination, then shrugged. "Alright, I suppose, I can do that." Kevin put the ring onto his ring finger and then promptly blacked out.

* * *

When he woke up, he felt like not much time had passed, but a quick glance at his watch revealed how long he'd been out -- about fifteen minutes. He lifted his head up and the wall now had a familiar face projected onto it, that of the woman he'd pulled out of the car six months ago, a wry smile on her face. "Now I know I said we weren't going to see each other again, Kevin, but I'm not there in person, and I'm going to consider that sticking to my word. It's taken longer than expected to get all the mechanisms in place, and I'll be honest, I haven't been working on it with as much fervor as perhaps I should have, but truly life changing magic is like any other form of artistry -- it simply cannot be rushed if you want quality work done."

Kevin glanced around the room and saw that nothing else had much changed. The box had been moved a little closer to him, and the woman, Elizabeth, had scooted her chair in his direction, but other than that, it felt as though everything was the same. He reflexively checked to make sure his wallet was still there, and it was.

"Let's start with the simple things. The house you're in right now is yours. You're now also independently wealthy, although I saw your mind clear enough to know that you won't be content not doing any work, so put a pin in that. The woman to your right, Elizabeth, is likely going to be your majordomo, your right hand woman. I won't make that decision for you, but I think she's the most likely candidate, as I handpicked her myself based on what I gleaned from your mind. If you decide you don't want her, that is of course your right, and she will leave after finding another potential. But give her a try. I think you'll get along like a house on fire."

Kevin's eyes turned to look at Elizabeth, who was watching the screen with him, and couldn't deny that she looked like a capable woman, but he wasn't sure exactly what Morgana meant when she called her his 'majordomo.' Morgana started to talk again, so he turned his gaze back to the screen.

"When I looked inside your mind, what you wanted, more than anything, even if you weren't aware of it, was what I can only describe as an ethical harem, a household full of several women with whom you had sexual relationships with, all of whom knew about each other, and liked each other even. You didn't want anyone to be committed to you for life unless they wanted to. You didn't insist they be exclusive to you, only that they be safe with any other partners they might have, and that if they decided they wanted a more permanent relationship with someone else, they tell you, and you part ways amicably.

"You didn't require they be bisexual, something I found startling, but I think you'll find most of them will be. Consider it a sweetener I decided to add for my own edification. I rather like the idea of three or four of them teaming up on you and overwhelming you without warning, although I'll have to simply guess as to what they look like. In fact, you were remarkably unspecific about physical attributes with the women you'd like in your harem, other than an overarching philosophy that I myself agree with -- variety is the spice of life.

"You weren't specific about how many you wanted in your little ethical harem, so I had to use a bit of my own judgment on that front. I decided seven or so sounded about right, at least as an opening guess. One for each day of the week. It had a nice sort of symmetry to it. I've always been a fan of symmetry. As long as you have an open slot in your harem, the girls will keep on coming. My magic will ensure that. Maybe your majordomo will bring them to you, maybe one of the other girls, or maybe they'll just stumble into your life. Magic's tricky that way. It makes decisions all on its own. That's why I like it. I don't always have complete control -- I just point it and let it loose.

"I also made a few physical changes to you, just to throw in a bit more to round the package out. You've had about ten years of aging shaved off, and you're going to age about thirty percent slower than anyone else. I thought about granting you immortality like myself, but I saw in your mind that you wouldn't consider that a benefit, and I have to respect someone who respects their own mortality, even if I don't agree with that stance. Your refractory period has been shortened, to keep your partners satisfied. You won't get that male pattern baldness that runs through your family, nor their proclivity for heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, dementia and the like. And your orgasm will incite the hardest orgasms your partners have ever or will ever feel in their lives.

"There's a handful of additional surprises that you'll get along the way, but I wouldn't want to spoil them, otherwise they wouldn't be surprises, now would they? Now, back to the thing I told you to put a pin in -- work. You've been doing nickel and dime composing work for the last few months, and it turns out you're very good at it if I do say so myself. Certainly much better than you've been being treated. So your new majordomo will be handling the business end of your career from now on, and she's already got better work for you lined up. The pretense that brought you here has real work attached to it. Work you'll enjoy.

"Inside the box are pendants that match the ring you're now wearing, one for each member of your harem. They will link you all together. The pendants can be modified, into chokers or necklaces or whatever the girls decide they want. I know how girls are with fashion, so the gemstone mounting is flexible, and can put onto just about anything. Maybe even a ring, if a girl's got a particular issue with things around her neck.

"Anyway, that should be enough to get you started. But above all else, remember -- this is a gift. So enjoy it. Don't worry about the minor details, the things that don't seem to make sense. Roll with it, and you'll do fine. You've been a man waiting to wake up your entire life.

"So wake up."

And the video froze on Morgana La Fey's smiling face.

Elizabeth turned off the projector. "So, I'm sure you've got lots of questions."

"You want to fuck me? You barely even know me!"

She laughed, placing her hand on his wrist. "I know you better than you know yourself, Kevin. I talked for a long while with Ms. La Fey, and then I spent even longer studying you myself, getting everything I would need to keep you happy. I picked the house, the car, got you set up with your gig for this upcoming Rouchard movie..."

"Wait, I'm scoring Emily Rouchard's next movie?"

"You most certainly are. That's what your next gig is."

"And... I hate to keep going back to this but..."

"Yes, Kev, I absolutely want to fuck you. More than you can possibly know." The squeeze on his arm grew a bit more firm, excitement racing through her. "But I'm not going to be first. I believe I'll be taking the third slot, if that's alright with you. If you absolutely insist you want me to be first, that's fine, but I would prefer to prove myself and my skills before we formalize our arrangement. And the first candidate is here and waiting for you."

Kevin's eyes widened. "Really?"

Elizabeth nodded. "She's down the hall. You've been single for a long time, so I thought your first member of the harem should be someone who wanted you at your most... vigorous."

"Vigorous?"

She stood up, still holding onto his wrist, pulling him to his feet. "Let's go and introduce you. You can see for yourself." She picked up the box and they both exited the room.

The two walked down the hallway and opened a door leading into a study, a room lined with bookshelves, and in the center, facing away from the them, a girl on her knees atop a pillow, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, dressed in a white oxford shirt and a green plaid skirt with long white stockings. Even though it was clear she'd heard the door open, she didn't turn around or even look over her shoulder, waiting patiently.

Kevin looked at Elizabeth, who gestured for him to enter the room, so he did, and she moved in right behind him, closing the door after them. They walked into the room and around the girl so Kev could get a look at her. She was lovely, fit, tanned, in her early twenties he would've guessed, and was smiling up at him like he was the greatest thing she'd ever seen. She clearly didn't have a bra on beneath the shirt, and her nipples were stiff as rocks. Her hands were folded behind her back, to make her whole body thrust his way.

"Kev, I'd like you to meet Ashley. She would like to be the first to join your harem."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Ashley purred up at him, not getting off her knees. "I hope I'm to your satisfaction."

"I, uh..." Kevin was a little lost for words.

"Ashley," Elizabeth said, "tell Kev what you told me you're looking for."

"Mmmm. I want to be your fucktoy, sir. I specifically want to be your first so that when you just need to use someone, to fuck them within an inch of their life, I'll be the first name on your lips. I've been spending too much of my time with fumbling college boys who want to be gentle and tender, or worse, just violent and abusive. Trying to find someone to pin me down and fuck the shit out of me who doesn't also want to beat me until I'm black and blue has been an utter fucking drag. But that's just what you want, and I want that too."

Elizabeth set the box down on a desk off to one side, turning back to look at him. "Would you like that, sir?"

Kev stepped in a little closer to Ashley and had to stop himself from reaching out to touch her face. He'd started to reach forward towards her, and she'd started leaning towards him in response. "This is all some kind of joke, isn't it?"

"Put a collar on her and find out."

"Fine, I'll bite." Kev was absolutely prepared for them to start laughing at any moment, but until they did, he really didn't see himself with much to lose. "Give her one of the pendants, and then I want you to sit and watch as she gives me the best damn blowjob she's capable of. Hell, more than watch. I want you to counsel her. Encourage her. As dirty as you can."

Elizabeth's smile widened, as she opened the box, her tongue wetting those lips of hers that were dark scarlet with sultry lipstick. "Oh good. I was afraid I was going to have to convince you to let me stay for the fun. And as for the pendant, Ashley wanted something a bit more... skintight." She opened the box and reached into it, drawing a velvet choker out from it, a small broach in the center of it with a smoky gemstone that matched the one in his ring. She held the choker out to him, and he slowly took it from her. "You need to be the one to do it, though."

Kevin looked down at Ashley, who was trying her best to sit still, but she was wriggling and squirming like a child eager to open her Christmas present."You sure you want this?"

"Absolutely. More than anything." Those deep blue eyes of hers held his gaze like salvation lay within. "I'll do anything you want. Call you Sir. Daddy. Master. Whatever you want. And I've even got a cherry to put on top." His eyes stayed fixed on her, as she offered up a shy smile, almost the barest hint of nervousness beneath it. "I've only got one virginal hole left, but it's all yours, my final cherry. If you want it." She bit her bottom lip, the smile turning primal. "I hope you want it. I'd say I want to give it to you, but that's not entirely true. I really want you to take it. To fuck me in my tight little virginal ass. Because it'll be yours. So do it. Collar me. Take me. Make me your bitch. Your tight young whore. Your giggly, eager, willing little fucktoy. Please. Sir." She pulled her shoulders back further, her arms with her wrists crossed, her head tilted up to offer her neck to him as much as she could.

He reached forward and slowly brought the choker across her skin, moving to close the clasp as he saw Ashley shiver, her smile widening. He almost thought he heard a hint of a moan pouring from her throat. "Okay, you've been collared, so--"

As soon as he pulled his hands back, hers were moving forward in a rush straight for his belt. There was no mistaking the primal moan erupting from her lips now as she nearly ripped his jeans open, her fingernails painted a bright red. "God, I've never wanted to suck a dick so much in my entire fucking life," Ashley cooed at him as she tugged his jeans and boxers down, his cock springing forth to slap her in the face. She immediately pushed her lips down on it, no hint of patience as her eyes kept focused on his while she slid the entire length of his thick dick into her throat. He could feel her throat clenching a little, struggling to accommodate him, but she was determined to push until her lips were wrapped around the base. He could see those lovely blue eyes of hers watering up, but refused to let him pull back until her nose was against the base of his cock, holding there for a moment before drawing back, coughing just a little bit as she gasped for air.

Elizabeth purred a little bit, sliding up behind Kevin, smoothing one of her hands across his chest as she rested her chin on his shoulder, looking down as Ashley pushed her mouth back down to his balls again. "Voracious little slut you've got there, sir," she whispered into his ear. "I'm impressed she can get the whole fucking thing in her throat."

"It's unfair me being fully dressed like this and --"

Ashley's hands leaped from his hips to immediately fold her fingertips into the edges of her Oxford shirt and ripped it open, causing all the buttons to pop off and fly across the room, exposing her perky tits. She wasn't anywhere near as curvy as Elizabeth was, but they were still a decent handful. Her pink nipples looked stiff enough to cut glass. She pulled her head back to gasp for air and look up at Elizabeth, a string of spit connecting her mouth to his dick as she grinned, frantic and a little crazed. "You weren't kidding about the taste."

"The taste?" Kevin asked Elizabeth. "What's she talking about?"

Elizabeth giggled, nuzzling up against him. "One of those little surprises mentioned earlier. Your cum, precum included, will taste sweet, custom tailored to each woman's desires." He could feel Elizabeth's heavy tits pressed against his back firmly as her hand reached down to stroke a bit of Ashley's hair from her face. "What's it taste like to you, slut?"

Ashley giggled, her tongue slathering over the head of his cock. "Super sweet, like cotton candy. It makes me shiver each time I taste it." She pushed her mouth back down and then pulled up quickly only to slide her lips back down again, almost fucking her face onto his dick.

Elizabeth nibbled on his earlobe, letting her tongue tease the shell of it. "She doesn't really need my encouragement, Sir," she whispered at him. "And I'm actually getting a little jealous. When you're fucking my face for the first time, I'm going to make sure I've got thick mascara on so I'll have it running down my cheeks before you're done. But you're going too gentle on her, I think."

"Oh?" Kevin laughed a little bit. "What should I be doing instead?"

"Something like this," Elizabeth said as her hand grabbed the girl's blonde ponytail and pushed, holding her face down for a long moment, until one of Ashley's hands reached to grab one of Elizabeth's calves, at which point she pulled the girl's head back. Elizabeth giggled into Kevin's ear, as Ashley panted for air, but refused to pull away, her tongue still lapping at his shaft. "See? Nothing wrong with skullfucking a slut every now and again. Besides, you love it, don't you, you little whore?"

"Mmmm... Yes ma'am," Ashley said just before her mouth pushed back down onto his cock. "But if it's okay, I'd very much like to be fucked now."

"That's really up to him, isn't it? But you could ask him."

"Sir?" Ashley turned her eyes back up to him. "Can you please fuck me now?"

"Are you sure that's what you want, Ashley?"

"More than fucking anything."

"Give Elizabeth a kiss then get on your hands and knees on the pillow," Kevin said.

Elizabeth moaned softly as she crouched down, taking Ashley's chin in her fingers, tilting her head up. "What a lucky little fuckpet you are," she said, before kissing the younger girl. Elizabeth couldn't help herself and pushed her tongue into Ashley's mouth, shivering hard as an orgasm rushed through her body, the taste of Kevin's cum on Ashley's tongue setting it off inside of her. Eventually she drew in the strength to pull back from Ashley's lips. "God how I envy you, you little whore. Now get down on your hands and knees, and pull up that skirt for your Master."

The blonde girl nodded and turned around, keeping her knees on the pillow as much as possible, before she bent forward, falling onto her hands. Slowly, she drew up one hand and snaked it behind her, reaching to draw her skirt up slowly until it rest at her waist, hiked over her pert apple shaped ass. "All yours, sir."

Kevin moved down to his knees behind her, reaching one hand between the girl's legs to smooth his hand against her snatch. He'd never felt someone so drenched in his entire life. "God, she's fucking soaked."

Elizabeth laughed again, moving to sit in a plush chair he hadn't noticed until she took it. "You made her that way. You'll make them all that way. It's hard to resist, isn't it?"

The whole dreamlike state felt particularly heightened as he rubbed the tip of his cock across her twat, feeling her shiver, trying to get him lined up so she could push onto it, but Kevin kept moving, not yet letting himself impale her. "Very much so."

"Go on then. Enjoy yourself."

He set his hands on her hips and let her wiggle until the mushroom head of his dick was properly aligned, and then let her push herself back onto it, his hands more holding onto her hips than pulling her on, as a groan escaped his lips. "Fuck, she's fucking tight."

"Teenage pussy usually is, you'll find," Elizabeth said.

"Teenage?"

"Ashley's only eighteen, Kevin. She'll be a freshman at UCLA in the fall, won't you, dear?"

"Nnnnnhhhhh.... yes, ma'am."

"When was the last time you fucked a teenager, Kevin?"

"I've," he muttered, "I've never fucked a teenager. I didn't lose my virginity until my twenties."

"Ah, well then," Elizabeth said as she reached over and poured herself a glass of bourbon before raising it up in a toast. "Mazel tov. To your first, since she certainly won't be your last."

He drew back and then thrust forward again, far less hesitant than before.

"That's it," Elizabeth said to him. "Really give it to the little bitch. She told you she likes it rough."

He surprised even himself when he lifted a hand and slapped Ashley's ass with a loud spank, the girl squealing delightedly in response. "Fuck yeah, daddy," the girl shouted at him. "Spank me like the slut I am."

Elizabeth took a draw from the liquor then rose to her feet, setting the glass back down on a table, as she walked over and knelt down in front of Ashley, her stockings skidding a little on the wood floor. She reached up a hand and slapped Ashley in the face, not brutally hard, but enough to smart, certainly. "Whose slut are you?"

"His slut, ma'am!"

"Don't tell me, you silly slut. Tell him."

Ashley looked back over her shoulder at him and those bright blue eyes flared with an intensity that almost frightened him. "I'm your slut, sir. Fuck me. Fuck your little teenage fucktoy. Fuck me like the whore I am for you. Fuck your whore, daddy. Pound me. Your dick feels so fucking good. Pound me. Fuck my hole. I wanna feel you cumming in my cunt. So fucking good. Fill me full. Pour it in me. Cum in my cunt, Master. Cum inside me. Gimme that cum."

"Tug her hair before you do, will you?" Elizabeth said to him, her voice perfectly calm.

Kevin grabbed Ashley's ponytail and yanked it, feeling his nuts drawing up and just as he started to unload inside of the teenager's silky snatch, she started spasming and clenching on his cock, trying her best to milk as much cum out of him as she could.

Just as Ashley began clamping down on Kevin's dick in the throes of orgasm, Elizabeth fished out a phone from the pocket of her suit jacket and took a photo of the young girl's face. The flash from the cell phone was a dead giveaway.

He slumped a little forward, his hand pressed against the small of her back, and Ashley's hands slipped out from under her, as her shoulders braced against the edge of the pillow, a satisfied moan burbling from her throat.

Elizabeth crawled forward and leaned her head down to push her mouth onto his cock, suckling it clean before pulling her head back. "So, did I do well, sir?"

""Fuck, she's delightful. I should give you the job right now."

She smirked up at him, putting the phone in the back pocket of his jeans. "I'm gonna get a picture like that for every girl you take in, so you see their O face whenever they call you. It's her contact photo. You'll have to get used to carrying two cellphones, but it'll be second nature before you know it."

"Fuck, I need to take a break."

"Let me take you to the master bedroom," Elizabeth said, moving to her feet before helping him up. "You can have a nap, and later tonight, we can talk the actual business and next steps." She tugged his jeans back up, buttoning them up for him.

"What about her?" Kevin said, gesturing to Ashley.

"I'll send her along to crawl in bed with you." The teenage girl was slumped in a puddle on the pillow, still trembling in the aftershocks of the orgasm. "Once the slut can stand, anyway..."

Intermission One -- Born To Run

A short nap, as it turned out, had morphed into a long sleep. Kevin didn't normally go to bed at five in the evening, but as soon as he'd crawled into that massive king-sized bed, he'd put his head down onto the pillow and passed right out and slept until morning. He had been sure he'd gotten into bed wearing most of his clothes, so he was sure surprised when he awoke completely naked, except for the ring, naturally. By the look of the sky outside of the giant window overlooking Los Angeles, it had to be early morning, with the sun just breaking on the horizon. That was the second thing he'd noted when he woke up.

The first had been that Ashley was slowly bobbing her head up and down on his cock, her tongue taking its time in slathering every inch of his shaft. It was a leisurely pace, as if she was simply enjoying his morning wood without trying to intentionally awaken him. She was on her knees, completely naked except for the collar around her throat. Sitting next to her on the bed was Elizabeth, who stroked the girl's hair from time to time. "She insisted she be allowed to wake you, sir," Elizabeth said to him. "I assured her you wouldn't mind too much." She had changed from a business suit into something significantly more casual, a large t-shirt hanging over what Kev assumed had to be shorts.

"It shouldn't be an every morning kind of thing," Kevin said, "but I wouldn't mind it once or twice a week." Now that he was awake, Ashley had dialed back on the hesitation to her pace, and was thrusting her face onto his cock faster now, glucking each time the tip of his shaft hit the back of her throat. The girl clearly knew what she wanted, and didn't want to wait for it, not that Kevin could put up all that much in the way of resistance.

"You hear that, Ashley?"

She pulled her head off, hovering just over his cock so she could speak. "Yes ma'am."

Elizabeth swatted the girl hard on the ass. "Don't tell me. Tell him."

"Yes sir, I won't do it every morning. Twice a week." And then she immediately dove back to her task, wrapping her lips around his dick as if it pained her to take her mouth off of it.

"She'll probably just end up fucking you awake at least once or twice a week as well, if you don't tell her not to, although once there are more women in this bed, we'll be able to keep her in check a bit better. Such a thirsty little slut, but then I knew she would be."

"How did you even find her?"

"Her mother is my old college roommate," Elizabeth said with a smile. Kevin was surprised. He'd guessed that Elizabeth was in her early 30s, but if she had a college roommate with a daughter going off to college herself, she had to be in early 40s instead, not that he minded. As if reading his mind, she continued. "Hopefully that doesn't make you think I'm too old for you, but I've watched Ashley grow up over the years. I'm even her godmother. She needed someone older to talk to who wasn't her mother, so I know all of her dirty little secrets. And when she wanted to dabble in more sapphic delights, I was a safe outlet for her. She had been complaining to me the day after my first meeting with Ms. La Fey that she'd been having such rotten luck with boys lately, and hoped that LA would be better in the fall. She's from Ohio, and moved in with me so I could present her to you. If you'd decided to pass on her, she would've just moved into the dorm from my place in August when classes start."

Having a conversation while being blown had never been a challenge Kev had been presented with before now, and he was thankful Elizabeth was doing most of the talking, as he could feel Ashley's tongue slathering over his cock, her cheeks denting in when she inhaled hard on his shaft. "Her mother isn't going to mind... all of this?"

"Oh, you won't keep her forever, sir," Elizabeth said with a sultry laugh. "Ashley will stay with you throughout college, but once she graduates, she'll head back into the boring real world and try to find someone to settle down with. Sooner, I suppose, if the opportunity presents itself while she's in school and you decide to allow her."

"If I decide? I have that kind of power?"

"Sir," Eizabeth sighed, a wry smile implying the slightly disappointed tone was more in amusement than actual dismay. "For the time being, you own her. She's yours. Dye her hair if you want, or pierce her nipples. Make her answer the door completely naked when you have pizza delivered. I mean, if you decide you actually want her to stick around her entire life, I suspect she would entertain the idea, but I somehow anticipated you would eternally rotate in new fucktoys into your stable, so you always have a coed plaything in the first position."

"You make me sound so cruel, Elizabeth, as if I'd kick her to the curb."

"She's getting something out of it, Kevin. You're giving her the sexual experience she wants for now. Beyond that, you're also giving her a place to stay, food to eat and paying for her college, out of your sizable resources."

"I am?"

"It's part of the setup that Ms. La Fey suggested," Elizabeth said. "She made a point to help me out with a few key details."

Almost as if their conversation was challenging her moment, Ashley started to thrust her face into Kevin's crotch as quickly as she could, bobbing her head fiercely, her tongue wildly slashing across his skin. He couldn't resist long, and in moments, he found himself blasting a load of hot cum into the girl's mouth.

Ashley pulled her head back, her lips pursed tightly together, and looked up at Elizabeth before getting up onto just her knees next to the older woman. Elizabeth leaned in and pressed her lips against the girl's, a searingly erotic kiss between the two, as Ashley passed some of his cum into Elizabeth's mouth, making her tremble for a long moment before the two broke the kiss.

"What's he taste like to you, ma'am?" Ashley asked her.

"Like Macallan 25, smokey and yet vital and domineering," Elizabeth answered. "I can't wait to have an entire dose all to myself, but good things come to those who wait." She rubbed a circle onto the young girl's bare back. "Go and get dressed now, Ashley. We have a guest planned for later today, and it simply will not do for you to walk around wearing only that."

"I'll go hop through a shower," she said, crawling off the bed.

Kevin and Elizabeth both watched the girl's ass sway as she walked away from them and headed into the bathroom. "Every day you let her keep that cherry, sir, is a goddamn shame, but she is yours to do with as you see fit," Elizabeth sighed. "Know that she's very eager for it, though."

"I'll get there soon enough, I'm sure." Kev slipped out of the bed and moved over to the walk in closet that was bigger than his old living room. "Some of these clothes aren't mine, but I know at least some of them absolutely are. I don't know where you'd even find a Tangerine Dream t-shirt these days," he said, his fingers brushing against the aforementioned shirt which hung from a clothes hanger. "I've certainly never hung them up before."

"After you passed out, Ashley and I took your keys over to your place and packed up some of your essential things to bring here. Clothes, your instruments and your cat. He's resting quietly in the living room. He seemed quite nervous when we brought him here, but we brought him immediately into the bedroom and let him sit on the bed with you and that seemed to calm him right now. He's been exploring since then, I think. Later today, we can go over what else you want to bring and what you want to donate."

"Yeah, Stu's pretty unflappable. Once you showed him that I'm here, as long as he can find food and a litter box, he'll be fine." Kevin opened a series of drawers, finding pajamas, sheets, and eventually underwear and socks, grabbing a pair of boxers to tug on, followed by some white gym socks. The next drawer down was full of jeans and slacks, so he grabbed a pair of loose fitting Levis and pulled them on before he went back to the Tangerine Dream t-shirt, sliding it off the hanger and over his head. "What did you mean by 'donate?'"

"Most of the furniture is, if you don't mind me saying so, sir, a little beneath you at this point, but I wasn't sure if any of it had sentimental value. Couches, chairs, beds, we have the house nice and stocked with much better than what you had at home. Books, CDs, vinyl and such, we can someone bring all that over, but I think your days of needing that wobbly kitchen table are over, don't you?"

Kev tugged on a pair of his favorite leather boots as he nodded. "I suppose that's true. Bring all the posters from the walls, the vinyl, the CDs, the books, oh, and I've got a handful of coffee mugs that I want. My computer as well. I'm sure you've bought me the newest high tech monstrosity, and that's fine, but I still need to get all my data off the old one." He glanced at Elizabeth, as a thought occurred to him. "Are you living here as well?"

"I'm staying in the guest house out back until you decide whether to bring me on board or not, sir, although I do keep an apartment downtown."

"Elizabeth," Kevin sighed. "Can you please drop the pretense that I'm not going to bring you on as my majordomo? You've set up this house incredibly well, and you know enough about me to know that if I woke up in a strange house, the first thing I was going to be worried about was if someone had fed my cat. You're on my staff. You're the head of my staff. Get used to the idea."

Elizabeth both smirked and blushed a little. "Yes. Well." She seemed almost uncertain what to say next. "I'll still wait until after you've brought one more member into your household before I officially get my locket, just to be certain. But I'll bring my things from the guest house into the main house when you're having your meeting this afternoon."

The two of them had walked from the bedroom out into the hallway outside, as Elizabeth was starting to take him on a tour of his new home. He was certain the layout was going to challenge him for a while, but soon enough, he would be able to think of it as home without it feeling like a lie. As they made their way down the stairs and past the entryway, Kevin noted with approval that the Picasso that had been hanging there had been moved. "Who am I meeting with?" he asked her, as they headed into the living room, or, he supposed, one of the living rooms.

"Director Emily Rouchard and actress Alice Karteaux as I mentioned to you yesterday. They'll be here to talk to you about the film and go over what they're looking for in terms of score. They have a four o'clock meeting, with dinner being catered in, depending on how long the meeting goes. Ms. Rouchard is quite particular about what she wants from a sonic perspective, so the meeting may well run into the evening. She took a bit of convincing, but after I played some of your work from "The Devil's Confession," it wasn't too hard to..."

"You heard that?" His Burmese cat, Stu, hopped up on the couch as Kevin walked by, leaning his head to butt against Kev's hip, a none-too-subtle signal for him to pet his companion, which Kevin did. "I'm pretty sure that film had negative ticket sales."

"I sent her a copy of it for her to watch, just so she could hear the score. She told me she thought the movie was trash, but was especially impressed with your use of a Hammond organ to make it feel so timeless."

"I did it all digitally, but I'm pleased she recognized the sound," he said as he moved to sit down on a couch, Stu climbing into his lap as Kev continued to pet the cat, who had worked himself up into a steady purr.

"Did you want me to track down an original Hammond organ for you?" she said as she moved to sit down on the other end of the couch. "It wouldn't be too difficult."

"I appreciate that, but they are a beast to maintain, and I can get the sound I want digitally with far less muss and fuss."

"You do have quite the love of vintage gear, Ashley and I noticed, when we were packing up your things. Five full boards worth of guitar effects pedals seemed, to my eyes, a little excessive." She reached over to the coffee table and picked up a tablet she had left there earlier, flipping open the top of it and bringing the computer to life.

"Each one is a different tool for the toolbox, Elizabeth." Stu seemed pleased that his master was awake, and settled comfortably, gingerly kneading at his leg with his paws while he continued to purr. "You said yesterday that you imagined this house will fill up rather quickly. What did you have in mind?"             

"You're going to need a staff, sir, who should also be part of your harem. You're going to need a housekeeper, a gardener and cook, to start with. Perhaps one woman could take on two of those jobs, but not all three."

"I trust your judgment, Elizabeth."

"Thank you, sir, but you're going to need to make decisions yourself. I also personally think you're going to be in need of a personal trainer, just to make sure you're staying fit and healthy. You may also wish to consider bringing on a bodyguard, a lawyer and a physician. I would've said you would need an assistant and an accountant as well, but I will be able to fulfill both of those duties for you myself."

"Why not a chauffeur as well?" he joked.

"I considered that, sir, but I decided that if you were to bring on a bodyguard, she would also be able to double as your driver."

"Fuck, Elizabeth," Kevin said, "I was kidding."

"Sir, you're basically going to be Hollywood royalty overnight. Once you start working on Ms. Rouchard's next movie, you're going to be one of the most sought after composers in the industry. You will be able to pick and choose your projects. Expect to be invited to all of the kinds of parties you never were before, and that means you're going to need at least a bit of protection. I wouldn't worry too much about things like TMZ, though. They've never seemed to care much about composers."

"So how many members of my harem have you lined up candidates for?" Kevin said. He had decided mentally just to go along with whatever fever dream he was having and enjoy the ride.

"Tomorrow you'll meet my primary candidate to serve as your personal trainer and cook. And next week, I've got a couple of meetings scheduled for you with candidates I think you'd quite like as a bodyguard/driver. Those seemed like the most immediate needs. Other than that, I've done my best not to work too far ahead." Ashley tapped on the tablet a little bit, as if making notes for herself. "I've learned a lot about you, Kevin, but there's a limit to what I can learn from afar."

"How did you learn so much about me anyway?"

"Research. I interviewed your former bandmates, your old classmates and roommates from college, reached out to what little surviving family you have, as well as talking with the people you've done work with for the last year as you tried to transition from being a rock musician to a composer. Oh, and naturally, I reached out to your former partners."

Kevin shook his head a little. "I'm sure that was a nightmare all by itself."

"Oh, I don't know," Elizabeth said, a mysterious smile flitting across her face before quickly vanishing. "I don't think you knew them all quite as well as you think you did. But we'll put a pin in that for another day. Beyond all that, though, there is only so much you can learn about a person from resources outside of that person. So as we spend more time together, I'll have a better understanding of what you are and aren't looking for as I work towards my ultimate goal."

"Ultimate goal? That sounds a little ominous."

Elizabeth shook her head with a smile. "Not at all, sir. Despite the fact that you wanted your own ethical harem, you also wanted that thing that so many men want - a wife. Finding a woman worthy of being your wife will take some doing, especially one who will be accepting of, well, all of the rest of your life. It's a difficult task, but one I feel certain I'll be able to overcome, in time."

"You aren't considering yourself for the job? Or Ashley?"

"Sir," she said, a rather formal tone dropping into her voice. "You've already offered me exactly what I want, the position of power behind the man of power. I will organize your life, manage your business and tend to your finances, and not only will you compensate me well for it, you'll also be so kind as to fuck me stupid on the regular. That's what I want, sir, to be your professional support."

"So what do I need a wife for?"

"Emotional support, sir, and someone to be your equal. I will always be one step behind you. Because that's what I want, that's where I want to be. I'll be logistics for you, but I won't ever be your decision maker. You will make your own decisions. You will be in control of your life, and the good and the bad will arrive at your hand. A wife will help you make decisions, but that isn't a job that I want. Sir."

Kevin nodded. "Honest and upfront. I can appreciate that, Elizabeth." Stu finally seemed like he'd gotten bored on Kevin's lap and hopped off, his tail swishing as he started wandering down a hallway. "All right, why don't you give me a formal tour of, uh, well, our house, I guess?"

"No need to be afraid, sir," she said as she moved to her feet, tucking the tablet under one arm. "It is, in fact, a very, very fine house."

"I might've said it's in the middle of our street, but I appreciate the reference."

"We aren't in the middle of our street, though, sir. We're at the end, and our driveway leads up to a cul-de-sac, along with two others."

"Touché."

Over the next hour, he found it surprising how accurately Elizabeth had been able to predict his tastes and preferences. The house was well laid out, and while some furniture had been bought, many of the bedrooms were currently unfurnished. Elizabeth told him that she suspected each of his partners might like their own room in the house to do with as they saw fit, and so none of them had been decorated as of yet, although Ashley did have some furniture being delivered tomorrow.

The house had a five-car garage attached to it, although only the Tesla he'd seen out front and his shitty Corrola were in it for the time being. "You kept the Corrola?" he laughed, seeing it in the garage as he shook his head, almost in shame that he'd ever driven the damn thing.

"I didn't want to get rid of anything without your say so, sir."

"It barely runs on a good day, smells off spilled beer and machine oil and the front bumper might fall off if you look at it the wrong way. I don't even know how you got her to start up to drive her into the garage."

"We, ah, actually had to push it in neutral. Neither Ashley or I could manage to get the engine to start."

"There's a trick to it. Doesn't matter." He waved a hand at it. "Get it out of here. Have someone come haul it away for junk and spare parts, if it's even worth that."

"Very good, sir."

The doorbell rang, as Kev glanced at his watch. "I thought you said the meeting was at 4."

"That'll be lunch being delivered, sir. I had Tacos El Tamix ordered, as your old bassist, Kelly, said it was one of your favorites."

"Oh hell, then let's eat. I'm not gonna let that go cold."

Kev, Elizabeth and Ashley enjoyed their lunch in the dining room, although he had to admit, they did feel a little outdone by the empty space. The dining room table was big enough to fit five on each long side and two on each narrow side, so with just the three of them, it felt like they were barely using the table.

Over the course of the meal, Kev spent a bit of time doing his best to get to know Ashley and Elizabeth, although Ashley was far more forthcoming about herself than Elizabeth was.

Ashley had grown up in Cleveland, daughter of a single mother who had been increasingly strict throughout her senior year. She'd had a few boyfriends, one of whom had been rough with her, which she liked at first, but he had taken too far one night. Elizabeth had put an end to that boy the next day, making sure he was terrified of even going near Ashley again, much less laying a hand on her. Ashley had also needed to have an abortion a few weeks later, which she naturally hadn't told her mother about, and Elizabeth had helped her through. That immediately made Kev grow nervous before Ashley assured him she was on the pill now, so it wouldn't be a problem for them, which put him back at ease.

She hadn't come to LA with hopes of being in movies or any such nonsense, but because UCLA was a great school. In fact, the girl told Kev she hoped to be a veterinarian after school, but that she was also open to finding herself while she was in college, if another life path beckoned to her. She'd never left Ohio before she'd moved in with Elizabeth, and the first day she'd arrived in California, she'd made her godmother take her down to the ocean, so she could swim in the Pacific for hours.

Every time Kev tried to circle the conversation around to get a bit of history about Elizabeth, the older woman had simply redirected back to Ashley, but not in any way that Kevin could get upset with. In fact, he had to begrudgingly admire the skill with which she could control a conversation and not make it feel forced.

Ashley was also insatiably curious to learn as much as she could about Kevin, so every moment the conversation seemed to lull even the slightest, she pounced on him to pry more of his history out of him. It seemed Elizabeth hadn't told her much.

It surprised him how much she genuinely seemed interested in his rather dull backstory. He'd grown up in Colorado and moved out to California after high school with a couple of friends in his first band, Broken Souls, trying to get noticed by a record company.

Broken Souls had only lasted about a year, and Kev had been attending the Los Angeles College of Music while also working as a busboy at one restaurant and a bartender at another. After Broken Souls had come Sailor Lemmy, his next band, which had lasted about two years, followed by nearly a dozen other unsuccessful bands until his last one, Truth Knife.

They'd actually landed a record deal and recorded an album, although half of the band had been so drunk or stoned that Kevin had played their parts for them for much of the album, except for Kerry, who'd never let her partying get in the way of her ability to drum, which was for the best, as Kevin was a terrible drummer.

The label had been optimistic about the album, "Wayward Dreamers," before its release, but the same week the album came out, the label had folded, the founder having fled the country with most of the company's funds, leaving everyone else to hold the bag.

While Truth Knife had played a handful of gigs opening for bigger acts, without the weight of a label behind them, the album had been dead on arrival, and they'd been on their last legs the night Kevin had saved Morgana La Fey's life. A week after that, they'd played their final gig, and had a blowout argument about the usual - how half the band wanted to be in a band to make music, and how the other half wanted to be in a band just to score drugs. When the band had officially called it quits three weeks later, it had basically been a formality. Nobody even wanted to see each other after that.

Ashley had virtually demanded that he give her a signed copy of the album, despite her never having heard a thing he'd played. He wasn't sure Truth Knife was going to be Ashley's speed, but he'd learned not to judge anyone's musical tastes for them. The band had been a sort of psychedelic prog metal band, and Kevin had often said the closest similar band he could think of to their style was Tool, although Kevin's style leaned a lot more heavily into electronica than Tool ever had.

The more he talked about the band, the happier he was to be apart from them. The interpersonal drama of the other members had consumed all of the talent they'd had, sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, until they were all suffocating each other.

Pivoting slightly from that, Elizabeth had pointed out that she could also likely get him work as a session musician, if he wanted, or he could take a try at being a record producer. Kev said he might not mind the occasional session gig, but had no desire to be a record producer. "I didn't even like our producer, Elizabeth, so I don't think I'd be a very good one."

She nodded and typed onto her tablet, clearly making a note of it. "You're the boss, sir."

"You know, I'm not going to let you dodge talking about yourself forever, Elizabeth," he said with a smile.

The doorbell rang and Kev glanced at his watch in surprise. They'd been talking for hours now, and his watch read 3:48 pm. The time had just flown by. "It looks like your four o'clock is here a little early, sir," she said with a smile, as she stood up. "So I've won this round. Ashley, clean up the table. Kev, I'll bring them to you in the meeting room we were in yesterday. Why don't you go and make yourself comfortable there?"

"I can meet them at the door," he said, shaking his head.

"You truly don't have to, sir."

"Elizabeth. I am not going to be one of those fucking snobs who doesn't answer his own door at least some of the time. Let's go."

The two walked down the hallway from the dining room to the front door of the house. "Why didn't they have to buzz at the gate like I did yesterday?" he asked her as they made their way to the door.

"I knew they were coming, so I opened it remotely about half an hour ago on my tablet."

"That thing controls the whole house, doesn't it?" he said, nodding towards the tablet she kept under her arm.

"You have no idea, sir," she said, as they reached the door.

Once the door opened, Kevin took a good look at the two standing on his doorstep. They served as quite the contrast to each other.

On the left stood Emily Rouchard, an indie director of no small renown. She was the daughter of legendary multiple Oscar winning director Otto Rouchard and had tried her hand at acting as a teenager, only to get such horrible reviews that she had withdrawn from acting before emerging as a talented director a decade later.

She was slender, with a pronounced nose, jet black hair framing her face in a sharp bob. Her husband played drums in an indie band called Ring of Osiris that Kevin quite liked. She was dressed in a loose blue button up shirt and black slacks, which made Kevin feel a bit more at ease that he wasn't supposed to be dressed up for the meeting.

On the right stood Alice Karteaux, one of the hottest actors working right now, in every possible way. She'd briefly had a career as a model when she was a teenager, and had moved from New Zealand to Hollywood to strike it big some twenty five years ago. Her first few films had been minor successes, although she'd mostly been a supporting player. The accent had faded quickly, although there were still hints of it when she would be interviewed. A supporting role up against actor Albert Lomax in a film called "Winding Bullets" had been her big break, and she'd said in numerous interviews from that moment onward she'd decided to trust directors over scripts and studios any day, and twice on Sunday. Since then, she'd done an overwhelming number of action movies, most of which Kev had seen dozens of times. Her most recent one, an action film that also happened to be a period piece in the 1960s, was one his top ten films of all time.

Alice was statuesque to say the least, well over six feet tall, and yet, still incredibly feminine for being muscular and toned. She had on a fashionable top that still screamed activewear and a dress that flowed past her knees. She was gorgeous in a way that was almost too much to look at, confident and strident, as if daring anyone to look too long, or look away, it was hard to tell. The last gossip he'd seen of her was that she'd broken off a three year relationship with Max Morris, a triple-Oscar winning actor about ten years her elder, although he did remember his bassist commenting that some article had said she was still single some two years after that breakup, waiting for some guy to "man up and grow a pair."

"Good evening, ladies," Elizabeth said to them. "I hope you didn't have any trouble finding the place?"

Alice shot her a warm smile. "I mean, you could have just told us you had moved into Roland Felton's old house. Is this the composer in question?" she said, waving a hand in Kev's direction. "Hi, I'm Alice."

Kev glanced over at Elizabeth. "You didn't tell me Roland Felton owned this place before I did, Elizabeth." He took Alice's hand and shook it, almost laughing a little. "I think you're one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, but I appreciate the introduction. I'm Kev."

"Don't dismiss yourself so lightly," Emily said. "After hearing your work on "The Devil's Confession"..."

"You know that's just a film school student's first project, made with a budget of about ten grand, right? It was a crap movie, but I did the best I could."

"I wasn't interested in the film itself, Mr. Bishop, merely how the music complimented the visuals."

"Please, call me Kev."

"Well, Kev," Emily continued as Elizabeth brought both women inside the house, starting to lead them down the hall to the conference room, "after that I did a little homework of my own, and managed to track down a copy of Truth Knife's album, and that sound is a lot of what we're looking for. Sort of metal but with flirtations of electronica and synthwave."

As they entered the conference room, Kev was surprised to see that his laptop was already resting next to one of the chairs, a little MIDI keyboard attached to it, his usual setup when he was demoing things for potential clients. "The band broke up months ago, but I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to lean back into that sound again."

"Excellent, but with more electronica, more synthwave, more sort of retro sci-fi," Alice said. "This is going to be a big science-fiction action movie, but with a lot of throwback in it. Less actual sci-fi and more like what 1982 thought sci-fi was going to be."

"Oh, the Blade Runner/Alien aesthetic."

"Yes!" Emily said, sliding into her seat. "Finally, someone who speaks my language! It's John Woo meets John Carpenter meets Ridley Scott, but with a kick ass heroine right in the center of it."

Kev moved to sit at his computer as Alice moved to sit on the other side of him. "While it doesn't surprise me you're making another action film, Ms. Karteaux, I have to admit, it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that you're the one directing it, Ms. Rouchard. You've mostly done two and three handers, small casts and low budgets. What you're talking about must have quite the effects budget."

Emily casually waved her hand. "ILM is handling all of that this time around. The movie's an adaptation of a novel called 'The Desperate Disintegration' and there was a giant bidding war for it last year."

"I'm afraid I've never even heard of it."

"It's not out yet, but the prepublication copies were floating around the desk of every major studio in this town, and when I saw it, I knew I wanted to do it. It's weird and warped and freaky," she cackled with mad delight. "If anyone else got their hands on it, they'd sand off all the rough edges..."

"Which are the best parts," Alice interjected.

"Which are absolutely the best fucking parts! So I knew I couldn't win a bidding war on my own, so I brought the novel to my good friend Alice here..."

"And I said I'd sign on as the lead, but only if Em could direct it..."

"And here we are, talking to you, seeing if you're going to give me that Truth Knife meets Vangelis sound."

Kev had been tampering with his laptop and keyboard while they'd been talking. "So, here's an initial thought..." He hit the play button and a whipping melody, steeped in Moog keyboard effects, danced through the room, while a subtle electric guitar lead line flickered in and out around the background. "Something like this?"

Alice slammed her fist on the table. "Goddamn, I knew we found our guy. We were listening to the Truth Knife CD in Em's car on the ride up here, and I kept saying, if he can lean into the synth stuff more, we'll be on our way."

"How far out are you?"

"We finished principal photography a month back, so we're editing it together now while ILM builds all our effects. I could show you a rough cut as early as next week. It'll be like four hours long and full of placeholder pre-vis, but you can still get a general idea of where we're going and start putting together some themes and a general blueprint for scoring it," Emily said. "You have a screening room here?"

"We have a very nice home theater room, although if you needed to preserve security, Kev could come down to the studio lot and watch it there," Elizabeth answered.

"That'd probably be best," Alice said, "just because the studio is very paranoid about security. We're planning on a release next April, at the start of the summer blockbuster season."

"I'll be constantly editing and reworking until then," Emily said, "but Alice has been very protective of this project, so she'll happily watch it with you and give notes. We may have to do some reshoots in a few months, but other than that, Alice is keeping her schedule pretty clean so she can keep tabs on the movie as much as possible."

"You seem pretty invested in this movie, Ms. Karteaux," Kevin said.

"I'd better be. I'm an executive producer, in addition to being its star. So it's my money that's paying you."

"I hope I'm worth every penny."

"If you aren't," Alice said with a wolfish grin, "you will be once I squeeze it out of you."

Chapter 2 -- Tuesday's Gone

Before midnight, Emily Rouchard had sent over the contract, officially signing Kev to be the composer for her upcoming movie, offering him more money than he'd been offered to do anything. He was a little surprised by the number, but Elizabeth assured him that while the amount was high, it wasn't unreasonably high. He'd naturally signed it and set it back. His first appointment was to meet with Alice at the beginning of next week, where he'd see a rough cut of the movie, and could take notes while he did.

He'd been tempted to stay up late and explore the house more, but Elizabeth had made sure he didn't, assuring him that his morning tomorrow would start relatively early for his interview with Elizabeth's next candidate. So he'd crawled into bed and Ashley had snuggled up against him on one side, while Elizabeth had agreed to slide in against his other.

True to her word, Ashley had woken him up in the morning without blowing him, instead putting on coffee, even going so far as to run out for bagels before she'd gotten him up. Elizabeth had also awoken before he did, and she'd helped make sure the house was in order. So he'd woken up to the smell of coffee and his cat, Stu, was nuzzled up against his side.

"You finding the new house okay, Stu?"

The cat stretched in response, but offered no other answer.

"Fair enough," Kev said, climbing out of bed. He hopped through a shower and threw on some clothes, before finding his way into the dining room, or at least what he thought was the dining area. "Bagels, huh? Good choice."

"Might be one of the last time we order things in, if you like your next candidate," Elizabeth said, as Kev moved to sit down at the table. "She's reportedly quite the cook."

"But she's not just going to be a cook, you said?"

"No, she'll also be your personal trainer. If you like, that is. She's been a personal trainer here in LA for about a decade, but she insists that training isn't enough, and that she needs to help keep her client's diet in check. She's supposedly a hell of a cook as well."

Kev laughed a little bit. "That's about what she does, not who she is," he said, as he started to snack on one of the bagels. "Aren't you going to tell me anything more about her?"

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling at him, as Ashley poured him a cup of coffee. "I'm not going to tell you much of anything about anyone in advance of you meeting them, sir." Ashley poured her one as well. "It's unfair of me to set expectations for you, so I want to let each girl speak for herself."

Kev smirked. "Is that always going to be the case? Because I'm certainly going to want you to do a bit of recon and make sure I'm not heading into utter chaos."

"Oh, I can't promise they won't be chaotic, Kev," Elizabeth said. "But they won't hurt you, and I think they'll be generally a good match, based on what I've learned about you."

"I truly wonder how much you've learned about me. I mean, I try not to spend too much time talking about myself."

"No kidding," Ashley interjected. "We practically had to pry it out of you yesterday."

"Well, I've been taught it's not polite to talk too much about yourself, so I try not to do that."

"When you're picking partners, Kev, that's not generally true," Elizabeth said.

After they finished breakfast, Kevin decided to take a tour of the house on his own. The place was huge, and overlooked Los Angeles with a hell of a view, the kind of view he'd dreamed of since he'd moved out to California. He'd never really thought it was going to be possible, but in the span of just a few days, his entire life had been upended. He loved the way it overlooked the city during the day, and couldn't wait to see it at night. He'd been tempted to sneak out of bed and look at it the night before, but decided that he wasn't likely to be able to get clear without waking either one of the girls.

"You'll love it at night," Ashley said, as she moved out onto the porch to stand next to him. "It reminded me of this old movie I must've watched a dozen times. It's called 'Heat,' with DeNiro and Pacino. You ever seen that movie?"

He chuckled, shaking his head a little. "Are you kidding me? I love that flick. But 'old movie?' That film came out in '91."

"That's before I was born."

Kev mocked a wince. "Don't I feel like the old pervert now."

"Oh, don't feel old." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Feeling like a pervert's okay, though?"

"Definitely," she giggled. "I like perverts."

"You have any inside info on this meeting I've got in an hour or so?"

"Just a name, nothing more."

"Well, that's more than I have now," he said. "Spill."

"What's in it for me if I tell you?" she said, swaying her hips from side to side. She'd only put on sweatpants and one of his t-shirts, and the whole outfit was undeniably sexy. "I want something in return."

"What do you want? I know a guy who can probably bankroll your college education for you," he said, after leaning in to pretend like he was whispering a secret.

"You're already doing that, so I suppose I can tell you. Her name is Natalie. She's going to be here pretty soon, though."

Kev glanced at his watch. "How so? I've got like an hour."

"Oh you haven't figured it out yet, huh?" Ashley clicked her tongue with a smirk. "Then I suppose I can spoil that one for you, as well. Elizabeth's always got things booked like fifteen to thirty minutes earlier than she says she does, so you're never getting too anxious waiting. Sometimes it's just like five minutes earlier than she said, but sometimes it can even be like an hour earlier."

"That sounds horrible for a personal scheduler," Kevin groaned.

"She knows how to keep you on task, though. So you'll work it out."

"What are you going to do to keep yourself busy for the next month until classes start?"

Ashley flicked her hair back over her shoulder. "You, mostly." She giggled, then rolled her eyes in his direction. "Don't worry, I'll make sure I get familiar with the campus, and figure out how long it takes me to get to and from school so that I'm not late."

"We're in the hills, so it won't be too bad, but never underestimate the living hell that is LA traffic." The two stood in silence for a minute or so, looking over LA while the sun continued to rise higher in the sky. "What can you tell me about Elizabeth?"

"She'll be good for you, sir," she said. "I think it's smart that you decided to just move her in already, rather than make her wait. I know she wanted to prove herself to you, but by now, you have to know she's very capable."

"Yeah, I got that. I was worried that Emily Rouchard was going to show up here with some lofty expectations about what I was capable in terms of scoring, but apparently Elizabeth had gotten her a copy of the Truth Knife CD."

"What did you think, Elizabeth was going to over promise just to score you a gig? That wouldn't make any sense. Otherwise your first gig would be your last."

"Sure, but does that matter?"

"To you it does," Ashley said, her hand smoothing over his back. "So it does to her too. I know it's weird having someone looking out for you this much, but you're just going to have to get used to it, daddy."

"Don't call me that."

"Oh, you can't lie to me, but I won't do it front of other people, if it makes you feel any better. Anyway, I'm going to take the Tesla down to campus and pick up my books today, so I'll be back in time for dinner."

"You don't want to be here to meet Natalie?"

Ashley shrugged. "Either she'll be here when I get back and I'll be sharing a bed with her, or she won't, and I won't have to learn her face at all." She headed back to the doorway. "Besides, if she's gonna be your personal trainer, she might be all crazy ripped."

"Somehow I think you and I envision personal trainers very different," he laughed. "Besides, if that was true, she'd probably be named Natalia or something."

"Yeah, I guess. Have fun!" Ashley skipped off the balcony and headed inside, just at the same time that Elizabeth walked out.

"She's going to be a handful, that one," she said, moving to stand next to him on the balcony. "But somehow I think you're going to like her that way." She nudged his hip with her own. "You doing okay?"

"The thought of someone telling me what I can and can't eat is a little worrying, I have to admit."

"Don't think of it like that," she told him. "Think of it as someone who's going to help shape what you already like eating into a slightly more healthy form."

"I've practically been living off Arby's for the better part of two years, Elizabeth. It's not exactly easy to just walk away from that life of glamour."

She laughed, recognizing that he was kidding. "All I can tell is what I've already told you, Kevin. Be yourself, be honest about what you like and what you don't, and all of this should be relatively painless."

"But she already knows about..." he said, gesturing around him, as if trying to find the words to say it.

"Yes, she's absolutely on board with fucking your brains out every chance she gets. Hell, she's practically been trying to get into my panties for a year, so I'm sure that'll help, too."

"Oh has she now?"

The doorbell rang, and Elizabeth smirked, giving him a wink. "That should be her. Why don't you meet her in the front living room?"

"How many living rooms do I have?" he called after her, but she didn't answer. He almost considered waiting to see how long it would be before Elizabeth would come and get him, but he decided he didn't want to be rude, so he wandered back inside of his own house that he barely knew the inside of.

The front living room turned out to be basically right next to his front door, and he'd walked past a couple of times in the last two days, but hadn't taken the time to familiarize himself with it all that much as of yet. It was nicely decorated, with a couple of couches in a V formation, with a wedge shaped table between them. If there was a television in the room, it wasn't readily apparent.

What was readily apparent was that he wasn't alone in the room. Sitting on one couch, facing towards him, was Elizabeth, who had a sheet of paper in her lap that she was reading from. With her back to him was another woman, whom he assumed had to be Natalie. "Ah, there's the lord of the manor now. Mr. Bishop, I'd like you to meet Natalie Yu."

As the young woman stood up and turned around, Kev was able to quickly give her a once over. She looked to be in her early thirties, clearly of Asian descent, but not rail thin, to his delight. She had a gorgeous mane of hair, dark but in waves that lightened up the further down it got. He immediately noticed her face was dusted with a generous helping of freckles, and she had a warm, almost mischievous smile upon her face. She was dressed in black yoga pants and a black stretch top that clung to her generous curves well. All said and done, she reminded him of the type of girl he'd occasionally seen when scrolling through the hot section on Instagram.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Bishop," she said, extending a hand to him.

"God. Please. Call me Kevin or Kev," he said, taking her hand in his to shake. "Call me Mister Bishop again and this interview is absolutely over. Got it?"

She laughed, nodding. "Got it, Kev. So how do you want to start?"

"Well, tell me a little bit about yourself and why you want this gig."

"Sure," she said, letting go of his hand. "So I moved out from Kansas City about a dozen years ago, and originally wanted to be an acrobat. After about a year, I relocated to Las Vegas and joined Cirque Du Soleil, where I was part of Zumanity for a couple of years."

"That's their erotic show, Kev," Elizabeth said.

"I know what it is," he said with a smile. "Never saw it, although I saw Ka a couple of times."

"My tits are too big to make it in Ka, and they're natural, thank you for not asking. After a few years, I decided I wanted to move back to Los Angeles. Las Vegas is a great place to visit, but I didn't like living out in the middle of the goddamned desert."

"Can't say I blame you."

"Anyway, when I got back here, I split my time between being a personal trainer for a few local gyms and indulging my love of cooking."

"You cook anywhere I would've heard of?"

"All over the place, really. I was at Musso & Frank's for a year, I did six months at Trejo's Tacos, but most of the time, I was part of catering teams or working at hotels."

"And how'd you come to hear about this job?"

"Well, I've been Elizabeth's personal trainer for a couple of years now, and when I saw her last month, she told me that she had a new gig she was getting lined up that she thought I might be a good fit for."

"She told you about the gig?"

"Not all the details, but she gave me the big picture."

"How big of a picture?"

Natalie's smile widened a bit as she flashed him a wink. "Big enough. Here, let me stretch a bit while we're talking." She lifted one of her legs up until it was perpendicular to her other, her foot resting in Kevin's hands. "Lift that up to your shoulder, would you?"

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me." Kevin slowly closed his fingertips on her ankle and lifted the woman's leg higher and higher up until it was shoulder height and then moved to slide her ankle to rest on her shoulder as she leaned forward onto that leg, pressing a little of her weight into him. "She told me you need someone who can be a personal trainer, and you also need a cook, so I told her I could do both jobs and save you a bit of money in the long run. Instead of paying two people high rates, you're just paying one a very high rate, like 75% of what you'd have been spending for two."

"Am I going to be happy with your cooking?" She was about to answer when Kevin raised a hand. "I'm sure your food is excellent, but I want to make sure you're willing to make things that I want to eat, not just things that are high end cuisine."

"Oh, I know how to get down and dirty with the best of them," she said, as she hopped in a little, her leg moving even further upwards. "I'll mostly be giving you healthier food, but it will be food you like, and I'm not going to deny you some sweets now and then. I hear you're going to be working up quite the sweat, and if you weren't before, well, I'm going to make sure you do with me."

"She's an out of this world cook, Kevin," Elizabeth said. "Hell, she won an episode of 'Chopped.'"

"Yeah?" he said to Elizabeth before turning back. "What was the hardest ingredient you had to work with?"

"A Cuban sandwich in the dessert round, but I made it work for me. I can pull up the episode for you if you want."

"Oh, I'll definitely want to watch it later. Sorry if I'm dancing around here. I'm trying to find a way to put this delicately, Natalie." The underside of her calf was resting against his collarbone now, and she was continuing to get even closer. "I'm still very much getting used to all of this myself, so I don't even know how to approach any of this. But I want to make sure that Elizabeth was perfectly clear in what the entirety of the job was."

"You mean did she mention that I'd be fucking your balls dry on the reg?" she giggled. "Yes, Kev, I do believe she might have mentioned that."

"And you're okay with that?"

"Okay?" She beamed a megawatt smile at him as the leg rose even higher, the underside of her thigh pressed against his chest now. "You think I haven't been looking forward to it for days? Hell, I'm practically shoving myself up against you right now. Can't you smell my pussy dripping?"

"But you understand you won't be the only one, yeah?" Kevin could feel his heart starting to race a little bit. She was close enough now that he could smell her perfume. "That it's going to be, well, a harem of sorts."

She tipped her head to the side, as if the statement amused her. "I can play with the other girls though, right?"

Kevin chuckled. "As long as they're okay with it."

Natalie looked over as she leaned in enough to pin her thigh between one of her tits and Kevin's chest. "You gonna let me fuck you, Lizzie?"

"As long as Kev's okay with it," Elizabeth answered.

She looked back to Kevin. "You gonna let me fuck her?"

"If she's okay with it, who am I to say no?"

"Then why would you think I'd be bothered by it?"

"It's not what I would normally think of as a employer-employee relationship."

Natalie rolled her eyes in an overly dramatic fashion, a move that made her seem much younger than she was. "Don't be so square. I like sex, but having to find someone in the clubs these days is a fucking drag. So knowing that there's a good looking guy who's gonna plow me good and hard constantly just seems like a bonus, not a downside. Besides, I've been trying to get in Lizzie's bed for almost a year now, so I consider it a two-fer." She leaned in a little bit, bringing her lips closer to his. "You wanna go for a tumble before you make an offer, or do I get the gig?"

"You still want the gig?"

She reached a hand down and smoothed the palm of her hand against Kevin's crotch, a sensual move that made his cock throb beneath her touch. "More than I can tell you, so maybe just give me the gig, and then I can show you."

"Alright, then you're hired." He could hear Elizabeth rising, and that was the point when he noticed the box had been sitting on a table behind her the entire time.

Elizabeth opened the box and reached in to pull out a pendant, a long golden chain with a smoky onyx teardrop shaped stone hanging from it. "I already talked to her about her style, and she wanted something loose, so she could tuck it under her sports bra whenever she wanted." Elizabeth held the necklace out to him, as Kevin realized apparently he was always going to be the one putting them on the girls.

Kevin took the pendant from Elizabeth as Natalie slipped her ankle off his shoulder and lowered her leg back down to the ground. "Last chance to back out."

Natalie shot him a look that sizzled with heat. "Ask me again and I'll knock you to the ground and not let you up for a bit."

He shook his head a moment. "I need to hear you say it, otherwise I won't believe this is what you want."

Natalie leaned forward and grabbed the back of his head with one hand, pulling his face down to hers as she kissed him, something wild and carnal, her tongue practically demanding entrance into his mouth before she pulled back, her hair a slight bit more disheveled that before. "Collar me, sir. Make me your bitch."

"You don't have to call yourself that if you don't want to." He unhooked the clasp on the gold rope chain, and then turned Natalie around, pulling her back a bit until her ass was grinding against his cock as he slide the pendant along her neck.

"Oh, I want you to call me that and more. There's something nice about being protected, looked after... owned." She reached behind her to place one of her palms against the back of his neck, as he moved to slide the hook into the loop and let the clasp close.

As soon as he did, he felt her press back against him firmly, a guttural moan pouring from her lips, her entire body quivering against him. He could feel her fingernails digging into his neck, her ass grinding into his cock hard. "You okay?"

"Okay?" she whimpered. "I just fucking came harder than I've ever cum in my fucking life. You bet your sweet ass I'm okay. But you know what I'm not?"

"What's that?"

"Done," she said, her other hand grabbing one of his to pull it up to one of her plump tits. "I'm not fucking done." She didn't let his hand stay there long, though, as she clenched onto his wrist and forced his hand downward, pushing his fingertips beneath the yoga pants to smooth against her snatch, feeling soft, fine hair before he touched those wet folds. "You don't mind a little grass on the field, do you?"

"As long as it's not like a 70s porno bush, I don't mind at all."

"No, I keep it nice and tidy. Now you gonna smash me or what?"

"Right here? In the living room?"

She reached down with both hands and shoved her yoga pants down to the middle of her thighs. "You make me wait any longer and I'm just going to fucking take it."

Kevin reached to unbutton his jeans. "You don't mind that Elizabeth's here?" He fished out his cock and started to rub it across her pussy. She was wriggling, trying to get him lined up and pushed in, but he was keeping her from impaling herself on it just a moment longer.

"Are you kidding?" She whimpered, then turned to look at Elizabeth, a crazed, eager grin on her face. "I want her to watch." On that last word, she finally got enough leverage to force her cunt onto his cock, and she ground back onto him hard. "Fuck yes." She pulled her hips forward a few inches then slammed her weight back. "Fuck." Again. "Yes!" Again. "Fuck the shit out of me, you bastard!"

"Did I do well this time, sir?" Elizabeth asked as she moved to her feet and stepped towards them. "I'm sure she's going to do all sorts of perverted things with you, as flexible as she is." She reached forward and tugged Natalie's top up to expose those plump tits, capped with stiff chocolate nipples.

"She's fucking tight," he said.

That made Natalie giggle, as she continued to force him to keep thrusting in out of her snatch. "Tight." Wham. "Asian." Wham. "Pussy." Wham. "Nothing tighter."

Elizabeth reached down and pinched one of Natalie's nipples hard between her thumb and forefinger, twisting it sharply. "Oh, I'm sure I can think of something tighter."

"Fuck, that hurts so fucking good, you bitch..." Natalie reached up and grabbed Elizabeth's head to pull her into a kiss as she kept thrusting back into Kevin's forward shoves, his balls slapping against her clit each time, railing deep and forceful each and every time.

Kevin could feel a hand smoothing along his hip before it darted down, as Elizabeth grabbed his phone from his jeans pocket, pulling back, as he could feel his balls starting to draw up. Natalie had widened her stance to let her get even more leverage, having backed Kevin up against a wall now, her cunt clamping and strangling his cock, trying to milk a load from him.

His body could only resist so long, and eventually, he knew he wasn't going to hold back, so he grabbed his hands onto her hips, as Elizabeth reached forward and pushed some of Natalie's hair out of her face for her, just in time for his orgasm to hit. As soon as his balls drew up and started dumping cum into Natalie's pussy, she went wild, her twat vibrating on his cock in a constant shiver, a primal moan pouring from her lips, just as that flash of the cellphone camera went off.

Kevin's shoulders slumped a little against the wall, as Natalie started to giggle, a mischievous laugh that sounded a little drunk. "Oh fuck that was good," she groaned. "And to think, I'm gonna get this any time I want..." She bent forward and then pulled her hips away from Kevin to slide her snatch off his dick with a wet pop.

"We should go take a shower or something," Kevin mumbled.

"Oh no," Natalie purred, as she turned around and moved to fold her legs beneath her, sitting on her ass below him. "Let me." Her lips parted and she began to lick his softening cock clean, drinking whatever juices remained there from the two of them.

Elizabeth leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, one of her hands reaching down to stroke Natalie's hair while the woman continued to clean him like a cat. "So, convinced yet?" she laughed.

"Tomorrow, Elizabeth," Kevin said, "I am going to collar you and fuck you within an inch of your life."

Elizabeth smirked, offering him a saucy little wink. "Promises, promises..."

Intermission Two -- Hungry Heart

When Kevin got up the next morning, he had been intent on immediately going after Elizabeth and fulfilling his promise to collar her and make her place in the house official, but as it turned out, Natalie cornered him and started him on a workout routine before he'd made it three steps from his bedroom. She'd warned him that the first few weeks of training would be the worst, but that she had rewards planned for him as he would begin to get whipped into shape.

For the next hour, Natalie put him through his paces, and by the end of it, he was drenched in sweat and he felt like every part of him was on fire. She warned him that tomorrow, he was going to be unbearably sore, so they would focus on cardio instead.

As his reward, she blew him in the living room, deepthroating his cock again and again until he fired cum down her throat. After that, she sent him to the showers while she made him breakfast. When he returned, clean and dressed for the day, there was a breakfast scramble waiting for him, and as promised, it might have been the best food he'd ever tasted.

"Where's Elizabeth this morning?" Kevin asked Natalie as he ate.

"Oh, she sent you an email, but she's doing some more prescreening for potential candidates today, so she won't be back until late this evening. Your schedule for the day is pretty light. You only have the two meetings," Natalie told him. "They're both in your email."

Kev checked his phone and found that he did indeed have an email from Elizabeth with his schedule. The first meeting was about reissuing the Truth Knife album, and was mostly just hammering out some specifics about what the rerelease would look like. The second was going to be a more complicated meeting, with a studio technician who was going to help him get the recording studio in the house up to whatever specifications he wanted.

Both meetings were scheduled for the afternoon, so it gave him time to explore the house a bit. There were, in fact, twelve bedrooms in the house, each with an attached bathroom, although the size of each room varied quite a bit. Obviously, he was in the house's main bedroom, as it was easily the largest, but he found that a few of the other bedrooms also already had things in them, one for Natalie, one for Elizabeth and for Ashley.

Ashley's room was the easiest to spot right away, as the teenage girl had wasted no time in decorating and customizing her space, with posters for various bands up on the wall, although he was surprised to see that she had somehow found a Truth Knife poster and had hung it up over her bed.

Thankfully, none of the members of Truth Knife had considered themselves particularly photogenic, so the poster was just psychedelic art in the vein of the CD cover, an anthropomorphic tiger and fox, each in a suit of armor, crossing swords in some sort of duel, waves crashing down on them from either side of the tiny rocky island they stood on.

Kev had always loved the artwork they'd gotten for the Truth Knife stuff. It was all done by a local guy named Max Wraithbone. Kev liked the man's stuff so much that he'd actually kept the original artwork for the CD and had it framed. He was sure Elizabeth had brought it to the house, so it was hanging somewhere, and he was certain he'd find it soon enough. He was sure now that he was making music again, his and Max's path would cross once more.

Max was an eccentric local artist whose appearance tended to rattle people who didn't spend some time getting to know him. He looked a bit like Charles Manson, with a big bushy beard, long stringy hair and rail thin arms and legs that Kev suspected had done their time with heroin tracks in them before he'd gotten clean to survive the 1980s on. He had to be in his sixties or seventies, but the drugs and sex had kept him preserved, or maybe pickled was a better term. In addition to doing artwork for some local bands, Max tended to pay his bills by either doing artwork for surfboards or by tattooing his artwork onto people's skin. Every time Kev saw him, Max offered to give him some skin ink for free, and every time Kev had turned him down, but now he was actually considering it.

Kevin shook himself from his memories about his weirdo artist friend and backed out of the girl's room to continue his exploration of his own house.

Natalie's room was right next to Ashley's, but it couldn't have been more contrasting. While Ashley's room had been full of clutter, Natalie's room looked barely lived in. The closets were closed, the bed neatly made and nothing at all on her floor. In fact, the only reason he could tell Natalie was staying in the room was that there was a purse draped over the chair in front of the vanity, and there were hair care and skin care products lined up below the mirror. Kev wondered if she just hadn't gotten moved in yet, but he did find it surprising how bare the room was. He decided he'd check in with her over the next few days and see how everything was working out.

The room next to that was clearly the room that Elizabeth had moved into. If Natalie's room looked barely moved into, Elizabeth's room looked extremely lived in, like she'd been in it longer than he'd been in the house. Of course, Kev knew that Elizabeth had been keeping all of her things in the pool house when he'd first showed up to the house, so it hadn't been so far to move it all.

The room was filled in wall to wall with art hung on the walls, clothes on hangers, make up on the dresser, even a clothes hamper off to the side of it. She also had a desk in her room, with a laptop dock, and a briefcase resting atop it. Kevin was tempted to open the briefcase and see what sort of surprises Elizabeth had lined up for him, but decided it would be bad form, beyond the fact that he suspected the briefcase was locked.

All of the other bedrooms were empty, and Kevin wondered how long it would be before the entire house was filled up. On his exploration, he also found that there was a room that was filled with exercise equipment, a sort of private gym. Other unusual rooms included a liquor cellar and a pantry that was barely stocked, although he suspected that Natalie would fill that up soon enough.

Just as he thought he was nearing the end of exploring the house, he found one last door on the ground floor that he hadn't explored, and when he opened it, he immediately understood why it was nestled so deep in the house -- sound buffering.

It was a large room that was bisected by a thick glass wall, one half of it a soundproofed recording room, the other half partially consumed by a giant mixing board attached to a couple of computers, with his collection of guitars hanging on the wall, surrounding the framed original artwork for the Truth Knife CD cover, a pair of feathery angel wings cradling an orb that seemed to be the earth in some portions and an eyeball in others, each border of the piece being the image of a knife with the word "TRUTH" engraved on the blade. The title of the album, "Wayward Dreamers" had been lacquered on the bottom blade in red fingernail polish.

This was his studio.

Kevin had spent much of his young life dreaming about these kinds of spaces, and now he had one that was his, a studio of his very own. The recording area was large enough that if he wanted to, he could fit a whole five piece band in there, while he was working at the mixing desk with perhaps an engineer or two.

He'd given some thought to what he'd said to Elizabeth earlier, and decided that maybe he'd been too hasty to dismiss her suggestion. The idea of being a producer wasn't such an alien idea the more he thought about it, but he decided he would have to be very selective about the artists he would be willing to produce. He'd made his judgment too early because he had been thinking about it in terms of his old life, where he didn't ever have the option of saying no to anything that made him uncomfortable. If he decided to be a producer, Kev'd initially thought, he would have to take any artist that wanted to work with him, and that would mean being saddled with shitty people constantly infighting and not at all focused on the music. But now he could say no to anything or anyone, which meant he could be selective about it, and could work with artists that intrigued him and didn't seem like total dickwads.

Not only had all of Kevin's guitars been brought over, either Elizabeth or Ashley had set up all of his guitar pedals, although they'd all been chained together without enough attention paid into what order they were attached.

People who didn't play guitar heavily thought as long as the pedals were all connected, the results would be the same, but one of the things Kevin had learned early on was that the sequence in which the sound came through affected the output dramatically. Where you applied distortion and transformative effects in the chain was a vital part of cultivating a sound. You couldn't just link them together in any old order and expect to get what you wanted.

In his old apartment, the pedals had mostly been unplugged so that he could build a sequence as needed, kept in a box next to the amp, but here, there was so much room that the girls must've figured he wanted to have access to any of them at all of the time.

Kevin was waiting for people to show up anyway, so he unplugged all of the pedals and then began reorganizing and reconnecting them in the sequence he liked the best. He knew that he really needed to strap them all down into the pedalboards, but there was always that lingering fear that he would want to reorganize them again to get some particular sound for a track.

He got the pedals reconnected and then plugged in his old beat up electric blue Stratocaster, flicked on the Orange crate amp and jammed out for a little while, flooding the studio with waves of heavily distorted sound. He wasn't after any particular vibe -- he just wanted to play.

It was nice to cut loose and simply jam. But like all things, he knew he couldn't spend too long, and sure enough, after about twenty minutes, he felt his pocket vibrate, letting him know his first meeting had arrived.

The meeting didn't take too long, but Kevin was delighted that Elizabeth had found a new label that was genuinely interested in reissuing the Truth Knife album. CDs were mostly a dead item at this point, but the new label would make sure the album was available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal and whatever other platforms kids were getting their music on these days. Not only that, they were going to give him the masters and ownership of his publishing rights for the songs, something that didn't mean much to most people, but it was exactly what he wanted out of it.

What surprised him the most about his meeting, though, was that the label representative wasn't just familiar with his band, they were a big fan, and had already gone to the label and found the extra five songs that Kevin had recorded for the album, most of which had never been heard by even the band's most devoted fans. One of them had been included as a b-side on a version of the single that had only been sent to radio stations, but the other four had never seen the light of day. Hell, he'd barely even remembered those songs, so when the label rep played them for him, it was like a tour down memory lane, and he agreed that they could be included in the album's reissue.

After his meeting with the label rep, Kevin had a late lunch, then headed back into the studio space, this time with a more concrete plan of action. Now he intended to put it through its paces, and for the next hour or so, he tested all the microphones, checked the soundboard and tested the sound proofing on both sides.

There was an iPad in the room, thankfully, as he opened up a text window and started typing in notes of things the studio would need that it didn't currently have. They ranged from big things like some specific microphones to smaller things like an actual velcro pedalboard that he could put all of his guitar pedals into. After recounting the number of effects pedals he actually owned, he made a note that he probably needed two of the extra large versions to get all the pedals he used regularly, and two more for the pedals he used more sparingly. He also immediately noticed that he needed chairs and stools for the recording area, as well as a couch for the room with the mixing desk, and maybe a few more comfortable chairs as well.

Musicians always bitched about not having enough places to sit, and even a band with five people in it usually had a couple of friends or managers or groupies as part of the recording process, and a good studio needed space to accommodate them.

Along with that, the studio space needed to have a minifridge of some kind, some place to keep drinks and snacks in, especially if he was planning on putting long hours in down here. He knew Natalie was going to make sure he didn't load it up solely with sugary drinks, but would probably grant him that some bands were going to need their soda fix.

Beyond that, the recording room was going to need some basic bracers and dampening spots to ensure that if they brought a drum kit in there, it wouldn't overwhelm the room. Bands took a variety of approaches to how they liked to record. Some insisted on all being in the same room at the same time, something that could be a pain in the ass to record and mix properly. Others preferred that each piece be recorded separately and then assembled afterwards.

Truth Knife had been somewhere in between, for a variety of reasons.

Daniel, the band's vocalist, insisted he always have the room to himself when doing vocal takes, which was fine, because he was a perfectionist who took a million times to get anything he liked on his best days.

Kelly, the band's bassist, showed up stoned or drunk at least half of the time, which meant he would take two or three tries at a song, and if none of them were good enough, Kevin would just go in afterwards and rerecord the bassline on his own. Kelly never knew the difference.

Charlie had mostly just been the band's rhythm guitarist for live performances, but he'd insisted on giving it a go in the studio as well. If he was honest with himself, though, Kevin wasn't sure there was a single note played by Charlie on the album. Everything had been either out of tune, out of time or just blatantly sloppy that he'd replaced everything the guy had done. They needed him for live shows, where he did fine enough, but when it came to studio time, Kevin wasn't going to let the guy's drunken ass drag him down.

But Kev had actually genuinely liked playing with Kerry. She'd been a hell of a drummer, capable of whatever style a particular song called for, and more often than not, adding flourishes that he hadn't even considered. At least a few times, Kerry had come up with a slinky groove beat out of thin air and he'd written whole songs around those.

As Kevin went about itemizing what the studio needed, he found himself coming to an interesting decision. He pulled out his phone and typed in a number he hadn't used in at least four months, praying she hadn't changed her number.

"Kevin, you old sumbitch," Kerry's jovial voice said to him. "How the hell have you been? Where the hell have you been? After the band broke up, you told me you were gonna call me when you felt like you got your shit together. Did you? Or are you calling me to ask for a favor like bail money?"

He laughed immediately, and wondered why he'd waited so long to call her. If there was any one person in the band he'd missed, it had absolutely been her. There had never been any sexual chemistry between them, mostly because Kerry was a lesbian, but their whole relationship had been more of a sibling feeling anyway. "When the band imploded, I guess I kinda did too, Ker. But the last week or so I've come out of it and lucked into a new life. It's a story you wouldn't believe if I told you, so I won't bore you with the details."

"Aw, I kinda like your boring details, Kev, but sure. So what's the buzz? Why you ringin' me up?"

"What's your schedule looking like for the next few months? You go back to teaching high school students how to bash the skins?"

"A bit, but I've been workin' as a session musician here'n'there too. And you askin' 'bout my schedule makes me think maybe you need a session drummer. That what this is about?"

Kevin smirked a little, glad that Kerry couldn't see him at the moment, as she might've used that smile against him. "Sort of. Consider it maybe a session audition for a more full-time gig."

"I'm not playing with those two fuckers ever again, Kevin, so if Kelly or Danny's in, I'm absolutely fucking out! I might be able to handle Charlie if I have to, but I don't see the fucking point considering how worthless he was most of the time."

"Kerry, I'm fucking done with the lot of them just as much as you are. The same goes for Charlie. And you're not the one who caught Kelly selling some of the band's gear to get a fix. I almost couldn't afford rent getting two of my axes back, so why the fuck would I ever want to see any of their junkie asses again?"

"Yeah, well, Danny's a misogynistic prick, and I'm sick of hearing his fucking apologies for grabbing my tits while he's drunk. I don't give a shit how good a vocalist he is. My new girlfriend would beat the living shit out of him anyway."

"I'm absolutely with you there too, Ker," Kevin sighed. "I'm done making excuses for his shitty behavior because of his talent. There's gotta be other talented singers out there who aren't fucking assholes, so next time I need a singer, Danny will be a lesson I remember, not a name I call. But I don't need a vocalist. I need a drummer. Hell, I need the best drummer I know. You interested in giving it a go?"

"What's the gig?"

"I'm going to be scoring Emily Rouchard's next movie, starring Alice Karteaux."

"The fuck you say."

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

"How the holy fucknuts did you land that gig?"

"I've got a new manager now who's capable of moving mountains when she wants to, and it turns out that she sent Rouchard a copy of our album to convince her I could do it, and she dug the Truth Knife sound, so I'm going to be dipping back into that style for the score, and it wouldn't hurt to have a tight sticker behind the kit when I did."

The other end of the line was silent for a few seconds before Kerry spoke again. "Say that I ain't opposed to this. What's it an audition for beyond that gig?"

"A bunch of things. I'm going to be doing a lot more composing for movies now, since having an Emily Rouchard movie on my resume will draw all sorts of people in, but I'm also considering both taking a swing at being a producer and maybe starting a new band up as well, and frankly, you're one of the only people I've ever known in the music industry who I never wanted to punch. And you're stupid fucking talented, so maybe if the movie score works out, you'd consider coming along for part of the ride."

Kerry sighed a little bit. "Is this a pipedream or an actual paying gig you've got?"

"Paying gig, I promise. Upfront work, with a cut of the royalties from soundtrack sales and streams. Look, I don't blame you being skeptical, okay? I know I would be if I were in your shoes, but do me a favor and think about it. Hell, if you want to come by my new place and see the studio I'm setting up tonight, you can."

"Wait, you're setting up a studio in a home? In your home? What the hell did I miss over the last few months?"

"Tell you what, I'll text you my new address and you can come up here for dinner and we can talk it over, okay? I'll show you the house and the studio, tell you what I can about the movie and we'll see where it stands."

The drummer seemed to consider it for a long moment before she agreed. "Yeah, fuck it, why not. I can't stand the little prick I'm supposed to be teaching tonight anyway. She's a brat who's only learning to drum to piss off her folks. But this time we're getting shit in contracts in advance, you hear me? No more fucking handshake deals, not with you, not with labels, not with fuckin' anyone."

"All above board in advance, Ker. Remember, I got just as fucked by the label as you did, maybe more."

"Yeah, okay then. I'll see you tonight."

After she hung up, Kevin texted her the address for the house, then sent text messages to Natalie, Ashley and Elizabeth, informing them he was going to be having a dinner meeting in the house tonight. Ashley shot back a message saying she would grab dinner on campus, so Natalie didn't need to make anything for her.

Almost immediately after that, his phone rang with Elizabeth on the phone. "Dinner meeting, sir? You really should have me manage all your scheduling."

"This was sort of a spur of the moment thing, Elizabeth," Kevin said to her. "I realized I was going to need a drummer for Ms. Rouchard's movie so--"

"Oh! Did you reach out to Ms. Friedlander?"

Kevin was fleetingly caught off guard before he remembered that Elizabeth had talked to all of his band members when she was vetting him. "Kerry, yeah. She's coming over to talk it all through. You're welcome to join us for dinner, naturally."

"Absolutely sir!" she said, an unconcealed enthusiasm in her voice. "She was the most pleasant member of your old band to talk to. Her appearance certainly threw me off at first, but once we started talking, I found her charming and delightful. I'll wrap up my screenings a little early and will be home in time for dinner."

"Great, let Natalie know and I'll see you tonight. How's the screening going anyway?"

"Now sir," she giggled, "it wouldn't be any fun if I told you anything in advance! Toodles!"

She hung up on him and Kevin caught himself smiling at the phone after she did.

Kevin also sent an email to the man from the label he'd met with earlier in the day. As part of the meeting, they had set up royalty payments. All of the band members had signed their royalty rights over to him long ago in exchange for cash payouts up front, but Kerry had always said she'd regretted that, so in the email he made sure that Kerry would get awarded her percentages from the reissue, even though she'd technically signed them over to him. He would just give them back to her for nothing, something the guy at the label didn't seem to understand, but agreed to. Kev didn't know how much money it was going to be worth, but he felt like it was the very least he could do for her.

Not long after that, Kevin's second meeting arrived and caught him completely by surprise. "DR?" Kevin said as he opened the door. "What the actual fuck are you doing making house calls to play studio prep monkey?"

The guy on the other side of the door was someone Kevin had spent a decent amount of time with. Randall McDonald, also known as Dandy Randy. DR, as he was often shortened to, was a mostly well kept guy in his early fifties who looked like he'd walked off the set of a seventies sitcom. He was called Dandy Randy because he was always wearing suits, but somehow the suits never looked modern, more like he'd walked out of a 70s cop show, like somehow the man had inherited an entire vintage wardrobe from his father or older brother. Hell, maybe the guy just spent his off days at second-hand shops. DR had a shoulder length mullet, and a handlebar mustache that sunk all the way to his chin line, giant circular rose-tinted glasses over his pale blue eyes.

Dandy Randy had been the keyboardist for a band called The Brand New Antiques in the late 1980s that had done relatively well for themselves until the tidal wave of grunge had killed their audience overnight. Since then, he'd rebranded himself as a studio engineer, but had spent most of the past decade always working for the same guy, a producer named Doomsday Davis.

The reason he'd known DR, and Doomsday as well, was because they had worked on "Wayward Dreamers," Truth Knife's only album. Doomsday had lived up to his nickname, but had been able to wring out some great performances from himself, Danny and Kerry, although Kevin had wondered how much of that had actually been because of Dandy Randy, who had been the album's engineer. DR had a deft touch on the mixing desk, and knew just how everything should fit together.

"Oh, hey Mr. Bishop. I didn't know you'd be that Mr. Bishop," the man said, taking a heavy drag off his vape pen.

"Please, DR, just call me Kev. And you didn't answer my question."

Randy nodded, blowing the drag out into the air before taking another deep hit off of it, then blowing it again into the air outside of the door, stepping into the house only after he'd done so and tucked away his vape pen. "Me and Doomsday had a falling out, brother. It'd been coming for years, but, like, about five months ago or whatever, I was mixing the new Calcified record for him, and the dude lost his shit for no fucking reason at all. It finally just came to blows. My husband told me to just be fucking done with him, that I shouldn't work with any motherfuckers who take a swing at me. So I finished that record and the last couple of times he's called me, I just haven't bothered fuckin' answerin' him, dude. But I still gotta pay the bills somehow, and since all my work was with the dickface and his studio, you can imagine the uptight bitch ain't recommending me to anyone who calls asking. So the last few months, I've just been helping people set up home studios to pay the bills. Fuckin' blows, man, but homeboy's gotta eat, yknowwhatI'msayin'?"

Randy could be eccentric, Kevin would be the first to admit, but he was also a wildly talented engineer and mixer who didn't deserve to be sidelined, after engineering some of the best rock albums of the last twenty-five years. He'd done some amazing work for Truth Knife, and now Kev found himself in need of a permanent engineer.

Kevin found himself wondering not for the first and certainly not for the last time exactly how Elizabeth could be this good at her job, connecting him to just the right people at just the right time. He didn't doubt for a moment that Elizabeth had found out that Dandy Randy had been out of work and that the two of them had gotten along well enough that Kevin would want to bring Randy on board.

"So, while you're going through this new studio with me, Randy, I want you to consider whether or not you'd like to come on board as my studio engineer full time."

"Whoa! You mean that, dude?"

"C'mon in, and we'll talk it over."

As the two walked downstairs, talking about the studio and what sort of things it was going to be used for, Kevin sent a text message to Elizabeth, saying "You are so going to feel something around your neck tonight after dinner."

"Promises promises," she shot back.

Interruption One -- It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll)

Dinner was scheduled late, planned for 8 pm so that both Ashley and Elizabeth could join Kevin and Natalie. Elizabeth had tried to insist that he didn't need to hold dinner time until she got home, but Kev had made it quite clear that he was going to, and if she didn't like it, she could take charge from him. She thanked him for not backing down, and assured him she would be home by 8.

It was around 6 pm that things got weird.

"I'm going to go for a walk, Natalie," Kev said. "This is my neighborhood now, so maybe it's time I had a bit of a stroll around it and see what's out here."

"Sir? Are you sure?"

Kevin smiled, using an easy going charm that had gotten him out of more trouble than he could keep track of over the years. He'd used it to get his gear back after his bandmate had hocked it for drugs, he'd used it after the label guy said he didn't hear a single in their first few sessions working on the album... shit, he'd used it to keep himself out of trouble as long as he'd been alive.

"Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta get the lay of the land by going out for a walkabout. I used to play with a drummer who said the only way to get to know the groove around you was to walk on it for a few miles in bare feet."

"Please keep your shoes on, sir."

"I'd planned on that much, Nat."

Once he walked out past the gate, he was surprised at how little he could see of his neighbors. Everyone in the neighborhood lived behind their own fences, so it was impossible to see who lived there, to learn who the people in the neighborhood were. He would have to go knocking on doors, or rather buzzing on gates, to find out who was in the neighborhood around him. Somehow he felt like he should save that for another day. It was almost like he was compelled to keep walking.

After he got a few blocks down the hill, he realized he was starting to reach the edge of a commercial district. On the other side of the cross street, he saw a little tiny strip mall with an Irish pub on the end of it that couldn't have looked more out of place.

That was where he was heading. He didn't know why, but that's where he was going.

The name of the pub, in decorative script that couldn't have looked more out of place among the taupe walls, was "Geoffrey's Gambit."

To the left of it was Liquor Outlet that looked like it probably got robbed at least once a month.

As Kev approached the door, he started to wonder exactly what was going on. The facade for the Liquor Outlet was rusted steel and one of the windows must've clearly been partially shattered because there was an unfolded cardboard box over it. The door was partially open, which sort of amazed him, because the Los Angeles heat had baked the area into a pretty good desert bake.

By contrast, Geoffrey's Gambit had a wooden facade on the storefront that looked impeccable, and the windows were stained glass that were pristine. The two building fronts couldn't have been more different.

Kevin opened the door and headed into the bar, and looked around the inside. The floors were wooden strips laid out, and the wooden bar itself looked like it might have been brought over from Ireland at some point. There were only a couple of people milling around the bar, and the bartender looked like he absolutely had to be named Seamus Maddigan.

He was this big, burly Irishman who looked like he didn't need a bouncer, because he seemed like the type of guy who would enjoy picking a fight with a drunk, like the idea of grabbing some drunk by the lapels and physically ejecting him from the bar would be the best part of his night. He had bright red curly hair cut short, and his arms were covered in tattoos, with his knuckles bearing the letters "H-O-L-D" and "F-A-S-T" across them. He had a waxed mustache that was curled on the ends, and a fiery red goatee with a skull ring binding the hairs together. It was a hell of a look, and Kev didn't want to be the guy who pissed him off.

"Ah, Kevin, about time you arrived," a voice said from the end of the bar. "You certainly took your time in getting here, didn't you? No no, it's fine. Come, come, sit and join me for a drink."

Kevin found his legs moving on their own. He felt like he should have been worried, but he also knew that he wasn't, and he felt like that should've also worried him. Since he couldn't be worried, he decided to look at the man whom he was approaching.

The guy at the end of the bar appeared to be in his thirties or forties, of Middle Eastern lineage, with skin the color of teak wood, jet black hair with tiny streaks of silver in it. His eyes were an icy blue that seemed wildly out of place on his face. He was in a pin stripe suit that looked insanely expensive, blues and purples, with a bright red handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket, a silver pocketwatch chain leading from the one of the vest buttons to one of the suit coat pockets.

The man looked thin, but not excessively so, although the man's left hand had some ornate tattoo work on it that disappeared up the sleeve of the jacket, dark but faded, as if the work had been done long ago, and the man had spent much time in the sun since.

On the man's fingers, he wore multiple rings, gold and silver, littered with jewels. In front of his left hand was a Collins glass about half full with what Kevin would've guessed was expensive whiskey. Just off to the side of that was a well-read version of David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" with a bookmark about two thirds of the way through it.

Kev looked at the man's face and found it long and gaunt, with a sharp, neatly trimmed black beard that almost made the man look like some sort of vaudeville villain, although the man had a sort of mischievous smile on it.

"I suppose you're wondering why you came here," the man said to him before looking over at the bartender. "Seamus? Get Kev a mojito. He loves mojitos." The bartender's name actually was Seamus. Kevin didn't even know how his day could get much weirder.

"I'm wondering a lot of things. Maybe you could start helping me all make sense of this."

The man lifted his glass to his lips, taking a sip from it as he nodded, before putting the glass down. "You're being polite about all of this, even though I'm not compelling you to be. That's an excellent start to our relationship."

Kevin moved to slide up onto the barstool next to the man as the bartender brought a mojito over to him. "Maybe you could start with your name?"

"My name," the man mused. "Now that's a long tale in itself, but let's see. I have had many names. The aboriginal people of Australia called me He Who Walks With Darkness. The Chinese called me The Endless Water. There's a tribe of people in southern Africa who referred to me as the Caged Thunder. But those are never any of the names that anyone ever remembers. So perhaps we should stick to the one that everyone knows, hm?"

"Sure," Kevin said, "let's go with that. So what is that?"

"Hm?" the man said, almost as if he was lost in his own thought for a moment. "Oh yes. About a thousand years ago, a writer took two of my better known names -- Ambrosius and Myrddin -- and combined them into one."

"You need anything else, Merlin?" Seamus asked.

"We're good, Seamus. Thank you."

Kevin looked at the man with a new level of respect, and suddenly the ring on his finger felt a thousand times heavier. But his other hand grabbed the mojito and brought it to his lips, hoping the liquor would cushion his system a little bit. "Not too long ago, I would've thought you were fucking with me, but these days, I've learned I no longer have that luxury," Kevin said. "So I'm guessing you brought me here?"

"I did, lad, I did." Merlin turned to look at Kevin more intently. "You may not realize it, but you have quite a gift there on your finger, the kind of magic that isn't lightly given out these days."

"I'm fairly certain I couldn't give it to you, even if I wanted to."

Merlin laughed quietly. "Nor would I ask you to, boy. I have plenty of my own magic, and so have no need to go pilfering from others. But it's quite the artifact. It's been quite some time since that much magic has been baked into a single item. I know I certainly haven't focused that much into a single enchantment since, oh, Excalibur, if I'm honest." The man arched an eyebrow at him. "How did you get it?"

"What makes you think I didn't make it myself?"

The mage chuckled again. "The bravado on you, scrapling. I like it, though. Most people find my presence terrifying, and yet, here you are, almost challenging me to tip my hand without giving me anything. But you're playing checkers while I'm playing a dozen games of chess all around you. You aren't a mage. You don't know a thing about magic, and you've never cast a spell in your life. You don't have any of the markers. Hell, your soul has barely a scratch on it, none of the usual wear and tear us real sorcerers get along the way."

"Yeah, okay."

"So let me ask again, where did you get it?"

"I don't know that I'm allowed to say?"

"Why don't you try and see what happens..."

"I saved the life of Morgana LaFey after an accident, and she felt the need to repay me, so some six months later, she gave me this."

"Oh really? I can't see that being true. Let's just have a root around, shall we?"

The wizard brought a fingertip up to Andy's temple and tapped it, and suddenly the memory came flooding back in perfect detail -- the car crash, his pulling the unconscious body from the car, Morgana's awakening in time to see the vehicle on fire. Then the memory jumped to just a few days ago, when Elizabeth and Ashley had entered his life, and the video from Morgana LaFey replayed in his mind.

Merlin withdrew his hand and nodded. "Well, I'll be dipped in Gaul's blood and called a Pigt. What a truly wild and unusual story. Let me look at this gift of hers." The man took Kevin's hand in his own, bringing it up to his icy eyes, considering the ring for a long moment.

"Truly a remarkable piece of enchantment, full of all sorts of twists and turns, but almost too uncomplicated, if you ask me," he said with mirth. "You see, you've done me quite the favor in saving Morgana's life. I would've been heartbroken had she died in something as meaningless as a tire blowout, so her gift isn't enough purely on its own. Because you didn't just do her a solid, you did one for me as well. Which means I need to add to this. But, on the other hand, Morgana has also been a rival of mine from time to time, and I do so love meddling with her magics when given the chance. So let me introduce a bit of my own magic into her gift."

"You really don't have to--"

"Oh, but I assure you, Kevin, I do. And it won't be all bad." Merlin brought his hand to move over the ring, and Kevin could feel the metal heating up on his finger, not so hot that it burned, but enough that it was a little uncomfortable. "What day of the month were you born?"

"August 3rd."

"Alright, the 3rd of every month it is, then." There was a green light glowing beneath Merlin's hand before he started to lift it away, the light gone, the ring seemingly unchanged. "So every month, you will find the third day of it to be Midas Day. My first gift to you. I'll have to consider it, because it looks as though Morgana left you multiple gifts in your future, and I wouldn't want her to show me up. That's a few weeks away, though. And don't think about trying to reach out to Morgana to ask her about it. When she asks about it, and believe me, eventually she will ask about it, then you can tell her, but until then, it'll be our little secret."

"Should I be mad or say thank you?"

"Oh, why limit yourself? You'll have a lot more to say next time we see each other."

"When will that be?"

"I'll tell you what, Kevin," Merlin chortled. "Why don't you come back here on the 4th, and we'll have ourselves a conversation then, alright? I do want to see how you're progressing with the little path that our mutual friend has laid before you. It's quite the majestic gift she has planned for you, so you should enjoy it. Her end barely has any chaos in it at all, so I'll have to be the chaos bringer for your little journey, and that's something I'm quite adept with. Go on, now. Scoot. I'll see you again next month. I'll cover your drink."

Kevin felt he had control of his own body again, and reached into his pocket and pulled out a fiver, leaving it on the counter. "You always leave a tip, even if someone else is buying," Kevin said before making his way to the door.

Just before he walked out of the bar, he looked back over his shoulder, and Merlin was gone.