Morgana's Gift Pt. 01-05

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."