Morgana's Gift Pt. 01-05

"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.