Chapter 15: Jim's new life
Jim and Cynthia fuck again at noon and and at the end of the day when he brought out his teat box of coke from his small business valice. They both had two lines and fuck hard fore an hour. When they were dressing Jim said he had heard the her husband was out of town often and she said that hee was gone four nights a week. Jim told her he rthought they should take advantage of that and she comes to him house to spend some nights. she said that would be wonderful. He kissed her deeply caressing her breasts as they went in the elevator and to the parking level. He thought about his life was already changing and he loved it . He realized he loved variety and wanted to have multiple women in his life. He wish he had done this a long time ago and not wasted his time with Brenda and suffering from being a "good man" and noyt having lovers all theses years. Now it was changing. He also knew he needed a woman to live with that would agree to an open relationship. And he thought he knew the perfect woman. Anna Madeley. The widow of a billionaire. She had been hitting on him since before her husband died six months ago and he had resisted becauase he was a "good man". That has now ended. She was a beautiful brunette from English aristocracy and had gotten board and moved to LA where she become the top escort of the most exclusive escort service on the west coast and met her late husband through the agency. She had beautiful green eyss and bangs sometimes and sometimes not with collar bone length hair. She was 5'7 and had a beautiful firm 24C-24-35 body with beautiful long legs. He pulled into the driveway opening the gate and garage door . Brenda's car was gone. He went into the house and saw the keys and openers on th island . The place looked immaculate. They had done a good job cleaning up after Brenda. He poured a generous pour of fine bourbon and went on the deck to look at the Pacific when he heard the door bell. He opened the front door and Jackie Mattry was standing there A beautiful ex model 56 years old and the trophy wife of another billionaire. She was 5'9 and 36D-29-36. She had been under the knife a few times and looked to be in her mid forties. She was an alcoholic and used drugs and was known to fuck around and had been after him for years. She was a good friend of Brenda's. Jim invited her in and poured her a drink. She congratulated him on his impending divorce and that her hubby was out of town. He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply and they fucked and drank and snorted coke for 5 hours until they feel asleep with Jim's cock in Jackie's ass. He had fucked all her holes. Jackie awakens the next morning with Jim's cock still up her ass.
Jackie awakens the next morning with Jim’s cock still up her ass. A dull, deep ache pulsed there, a testament to the hours of frantic use. The light slicing through the blinds was a physical assault. Her mouth tasted of ashtray and stale champagne.
She groaned, a raspy sound that scraped her own ears. She tried to shift, but his dead weight pinned her. “Jim,” she croaked, elbowing him weakly in the ribs.
He grunted, still mostly unconscious. He slid out of her with a soft, wet sound. The sudden emptiness felt grotesque. She rolled onto her back, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling fan. The room smelled of sex, sweat, and the sharp, chemical ghost of cocaine.
“Water,” she managed to say.
Jim pushed himself up on one elbow, squinting at her. He looked wrecked, his distinguished grey hair matted, his eyes sunken. He didn’t say good morning. He just swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded, naked, out of the room.
She heard a faucet run. He returned with a lukewarm glass of tap water. No ice. She drank it greedily, the tepid liquid doing nothing to wash the foulness from her tongue.
“You’re a animal,” she said, her voice returning.
“You seemed to enjoy it,” he replied, his tone flat. He found his boxers on the floor and stepped into them.
“I did. Doesn’t mean I feel human now.” She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. The panoramic view of the Pacific through his bedroom window was a mocking postcard of serenity. “Where’s Brenda’s stuff?”
“Gone,” Jim said, looking out at the water. “Shipped out. Lawyers.”
Jackie nodded, a slow, knowing smile spreading across her face. It was a cold, practiced expression. “So it’s real. You actually did it.” She lit a cigarette from a pack on the nightstand, the first drag making her cough. “I always wondered if you had the balls.”
Jim didn’t answer. He watched her smoke. “Your husband,” he finally said. “Still in Dubai?”
“For another week. Why?” She blew a stream of smoke toward the window. “You want a repeat performance?”
“I want an arrangement,” Jim said, turning to face her fully. His voice was clearer now, a businessman’s voice. “Open. Discreet.”
Jackie barked a laugh, a short, sharp sound. “Darling, my entire marriage is an arrangement. Discretion is the only product my husband sells.” She tapped ash onto the pristine teak floor. “What’s in it for me? Besides the obvious,” she added, gesturing vaguely at the rumpled bed.
“Access,” Jim said. He walked to the closet, pulling on a robe. “To this. To me. No questions. No expectations outside the time we agree on.”
“And your other women?” Jackie asked, her eyes sharp. “The young widow? The photographer? Susan, for Christ’s sake?”
He didn’t flinch at the names. “None of your business. Just as your… pursuits… are none of mine.”
She studied him, taking a long drag. He was different. The careful, guilt-ridden façade of the community pillar was gone, burned away. What was left was harder, emptier, more direct. She found she preferred it. “I’ll need a key,” she said. “And you’ll keep the good bourbon in stock.”
“Done.”
“And we don’t spoon after,” she stated, stubbing the cigarette out on the base of a crystal lamp. “I’m not Brenda.”
The mention of his wife’s name hung in the smoky air for a second. He absorbed the blow without reaction. “Noted.”
Jackie stood, her body stiff and protesting. She found her dress in a silk puddle by the door. She stepped into it, not bothering with underwear. “I’m going to shower. Then I’m leaving. I have a facial at eleven.”
He nodded, already scrolling through his phone. As she walked toward the en suite bathroom, she paused at the doorway. “You know this is real, right?” she said, not unkindly. “All of it. The coke, the secret knocks, this whole… new pleasurable hedonist life.”
Jim looked up from his screen. His eyes were utterly hollow. “I know.”
“Good,” she said. “As long as we’re both clear.” She shut the bathroom door behind her. The shower started a moment later.
He stood alone in the bedroom, the sound of the water a white noise haze. He walked to the window, placing his palms flat on the cool glass. The vast, blue ocean held no answers. His phone buzzed in his hand.
A text from Susan: Board call in 30. You’re ready. Remember: bold vision.
Another notification flashed: Anya, the photographer. The emptiness here is quite profound. I’d like to document yours sometime.
He ignored them both, his gaze fixed on the horizon. He thought of Chloe’s voice, shattered and final. He thought of Brenda’s things, boxed and labeled. He thought of the growing list of names, of the keys he would now duplicate.
The hollowness was not something to be filled. It was the foundation. He would build his new life right inside of it. The shower stopped. He heard Jackie moving around, gathering her things. He didn’t turn around.
He just stared out at the limitless, indifferent sea, and planned his next move.
He just stared out at the limitless, indifferent sea, and planned his next move. The shower cut off. Silence pooled in the room, thick and expectant.
The bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam scented with her expensive shampoo. Jackie emerged, a towel wrapped around her, another turbaned on her head. She moved through the bedroom with a proprietorial air, collecting her scattered earrings from the nightstand, her strapless bra from the floor. “You should get one of those keypad locks,” she said, her voice casual. “More discreet than copies floating around.”
Jim watched her reflection in the window. “I’ll have it done today.”
“Good.” She dropped the towels, unselfconscious, and began to dress in the clothes from last night. The sight of her body, used and familiar, stirred nothing in him. It was just a functional fact. “I’ll text you when Richard’s next in Dubai,” she said, pulling the dress over her head. “Probably two weeks.”
“Fine.”
She found her heels, stepped into them, her stature returning. She looked at him, still facing the window, a silhouette against the bright water. “You know, for a man who just got everything he wanted, you look like hell.”
He finally turned from the glass. His face was a closed door. “I got what I asked for. There’s a difference.”
Jackie gave a short, dry laugh. “Welcome to the club.” She slung her purse over her shoulder. “The bourbon better be top shelf next time.”
Then she was gone, the click of the front door closing echoing softly through the sunlit emptiness.
The silence expanded, filling the space she left behind. It was different now. It wasn’t peaceful. It was auditory, a high-pitched ring in the core of him. He looked at his phone, still in his hand. Susan’s text about the board call glowed alongside Anya’s clinical invitation. Document your emptiness.
His thumb hovered. He opened a new message, not to Susan, not to Anya. He typed Anna Madeley’s name. The billionaire’s widow. The thought of her, that cool English elegance, that history of sanctioned transaction, felt like a logical next step. A clean, high-class addition to his new portfolio to be used and controlled.
Lunch next week? he typed. Discuss the future. He hit send before he could dissect the words.
The action felt decisive. It propelled him from the window. He showered in water so hot it turned his skin red, scrubbing away the smell of Jackie, of sex, of the entire sweaty night. He shaved with deliberate, careful strokes. He chose a suit as armor—charcoal, impeccably cut.
As he knotted his tie in the mirror, the man looking back was reconstituting. The puffy eyes had receded. The lines were still there, but they looked like experience now, not decay. This was the face he would present to the board. Bold. Uncontested.
His phone rang, vibrating on the marble countertop. He expected Susan, checking in. It was his lawyer’s office. He answered on speakerphone, continuing to adjust his cuffs.
“Jim, it’s Martin. We need to talk about the prenup and her getting nothing but the $500,000. Brenda’s counsel is pushing for an expedited transfer. They’re not messing around.”
The word clinging hooked into him. He saw Brenda’s key fob on the island, saw the empty spaces on the walls. “Fine,” he said, the word tight. “Let them have the speed. But nothing else. Not a single inch beyond what’s signed.”
“Understood.” Martin paused. “There’s one more thing. A courier dropped this at my office. For you.” His voice changed, became gravelly with discomfort. “It’s from Chloe.”
A cold wire threaded through Jim’s chest. “What is it?”
“A small box. I haven’t opened it. Do you want me to—”
“No.” The word shot out of him. “Send it here. Today.”
He ended the call before Martin could reply. The reconstituted face in the mirror shattered again, just for a second. He saw the raw fear beneath it. His daughter had sent him a box. It could only contain relics of a life she no longer wanted a part in. It felt like a verdict delivered in advance of the trial.
He left the house, the ocean view at his back. The drive to his temporary office downtown was a blur of sunlight and shadow. He walked into the bland, generic space Susan had secured for him, all glass and leased furniture. She was already there, standing before a floor-to-ceiling window, a silhouette of efficiency.
“You look the part,” she said, turning. Her eyes scanned him, approving. “The script is on the tablet. Stick to the high points. Asian luxury market, digital nomad hubs, strategic partnerships. Vague but visionary.”
He picked up the tablet, the words swimming before him. “They’ll ask for specifics.”
“And you’ll tell them specifics are pending final negotiations and NDAs. You’re pivoting, Jim. Pivots are chaotic by nature.” She came closer, straightening his already-straight tie. Her perfume was a blade of citrus. “This is the performance of your life. The prize is your freedom. Not just from Brenda. From all of it.”
The board call connected on the large screen. A grid of faces appeared, older men and women whose expressions ranged from concern to thinly veiled impatience. Richard Vale was at the center, his gaze weary.
“Jim,” Richard began, without preamble. “We’re all aware of the personal challenges. What we need to hear now is how you intend to lead this company forward through the noise.”
Jim felt Susan’s eyes on his back. He looked into the camera, his posture straight, his voice calm. “Thank you, Richard. The noise is a distraction. Our focus is here.” He tapped the tablet, launching into the bullet points Susan had crafted. He spoke of demographic shifts, of experiential luxury, of a post-ownership economy.
He was five minutes in, hitting a smooth rhythm, when his assistant—a temp whose name he kept forgetting—appeared at the open office door. She held a small, flat package wrapped in brown paper.
He tried to wave her away without breaking his sentence flow about synergistic offshore hubs. She didn’t move. She mimed a signing motion. A delivery for his signature.
On screen, Richard Vale frowned. “Is there an interruption, Jim?”
“One moment, please,” Jim said, muting the call. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He took the padded envelope from the temp, scrawled his name. The return label was from Martin’s firm.
It was the box from Chloe.
He stood there, holding it. It was light. Too light. He could feel every board member’s frozen, pixelated face watching his silence. Susan stared at him from the side of the room, her eyes wide with a silent, urgent command.
He unmuted the call. “My apologies. A time-sensitive document related to our overseas interests.” He set the box down on the glass desk with a soft thud he felt in his teeth. “Now, as I was saying about brand fluidity…”
He finished the presentation. He answered questions in a steady, convincing drone. He performed the vision. The entire time, the brown-wrapped package sat in the edge of his vision, a silent, screaming void.
The call ended with murmurs of “cautious optimism” and a request for a detailed proposal in two weeks. The screen went black. Susan let out a long, held breath.
“You pulled it off,” she said, a genuine smile breaking through. “They bought it. You bought us time.”
Jim didn’t hear her. He was looking at the box. He picked it up. It was the size of a large book. He carried it to the window, the afternoon sun warming his back.
“What is that?” Susan asked, her tone shifting from triumphant to wary.
“A message.” He pulled at the paper. It came away easily. Underneath was a simple white carton. He lifted the lid.
Inside, nestled on a bed of crumpled white tissue paper, was a single object. It was the small, hand-painted ceramic bowl his daughter Chloe had made for him in the second grade. It was lopsided, glazed in a terrible mix of muddy green and bright orange. The word DAD was painted on the side in her shaky, seven-year-old handwriting.
He remembered the day she gave it to him. She’d been so proud, her front teeth missing. He’d kept it on his office desk for years, a paperclip holder. He’d moved it home to his study after the promotion, a sentimental trophy.
Now, she’d sent it back.
There was no note. Nothing. Just this artifact of a father who no longer existed. The silence in the room became absolute, swallowed by the impossible weight of this small, ugly, precious thing.
Susan came up beside him. She looked at the bowl, then at his face. She said nothing but put her hand on his shoulder tenderly.
Jim’s fingers closed around the ceramic. It was cool and smooth. He thought of the boxed-up life in Malibu, the keys on the island, the empty spaces on the walls. This was the final piece. Returned to sender.
He didn’t cry. His face didn’t change. He just stood there, holding the proof of his eviction from a former self, while the sun blazed outside, indifferent and bright. The hollowness inside him was now a space to be filled with his growing portfolio. It was the entire architecture.
It was the entire architecture. He placed the bowl carefully on the glass desk. It looked absurd there, a pathetic, childish counterpoint to the clean lines and technology.
Susan’s hand remained on his shoulder, a weight without warmth. “That was cruel,” she said, her voice detached. “She intended that to wound. You cannot let it.”
“It does,” Jim said, the admission flat and toneless. He stared at the orange and green glaze. “It just does.”
“Good. Feel it. Then put it away.” She removed her hand, the absence immediate. “Sentiment is a currency you can no longer afford to spend. Every transaction has a cost. You knew that.”
He knew. The cost was this specific, lopsided hollow in his center. The phone on the desk buzzed, skittering against the glass. The screen flashed: Malibu Security Gate. He hesitated for a single heartbeat, then answered.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Harding, there’s a Ms. Mattry here at the gate. She says she’s expected?” The guard’s voice was professionally neutral.
Jackie. Of course. The world, his new world, didn’t pause for ceramic bowls. It demanded consumption. “Let her in,” Jim said, and ended the call.
Susan had heard. She smiled, a thin, approving curve of her lips. “See? The infrastructure supports you. The board is pacified. The house is empty. And a guest arrives. The machine is running.” She gathered her tablet and bag. “I’ll leave you to it. Remember your lunch with Anna Madeley tomorrow. I’ll email you her dossier.”
She left without another glance at the bowl. Jim was alone with it for three long minutes. He traced the crude ‘D’ in DAD with his fingertip. Then he opened the deep bottom drawer of the desk, placed the bowl inside, and shut it away. The click of the latch was definitive.
He was pouring two fingers of bourbon when he heard the front door open and close. Her footsteps were confident on the polished concrete.
“Jesus, it’s a mausoleum in here,” Jackie’s voice echoed from the great room. “Could use some art. Or a live-in dealer.”
He walked out to meet her. She stood in the middle of the vast, sunlit space, looking incongruously vibrant in a crimson dress. She’d clearly come from somewhere else—some luncheon, some charity meeting—and hadn’t bothered to change.
“You’re early,” Jim said, handing her the bourbon.
“Husband’s flight got moved up. My window shrank.” She took a large swallow, her eyes cataloging the room. “So this is the scene of the crime. Where’d you put all her shit? Storage? Bonfire?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He drank, the liquor burning away the taste of dust and memory.
“It does to her.” Jackie finished her drink and set the glass down with a sharp tock. “But fuck it, right? That’s the motto.” She reached into her sleek, crocodile handbag and pulled out a small velvet pouch. She shook its contents onto the marble surface of the kitchen island: a vial of pearl-white powder and a sleek, silver card. “A housewarming gift. To christen the new regime.”
Jim looked at the coke. His head still ached dully from yesterday’s bender. His stomach turned over. The idea of it, the ritual of it, felt both repulsive and necessary. It was the fuel for this version of himself.
“I have a call in an hour,” he said, but his hand was already reaching for the vial.
“So you’ll be brilliant and twitchy.” Jackie was already cutting lines with practiced, surgical precision using the card. “This isn’t about fun anymore, Jim. It’s about maintenance. You’re maintaining a certain atmospheric pressure. Without it…” She gestured vaguely at the empty walls, at the horizon. “...you get what you see. A very expensive vacuum.”
She rolled a hundred-dollar bill into a tight tube, bent over the island, and inhaled a line with a short, sharp sniff. She straightened, blinked, and passed the bill to him. Her eyes were already brighter, harder. “Your turn.”
He looked at the neat white line. It was a demarcation. Everything on this side of it was the bowl in the drawer, Chloe’s voice, the sickening hollow. Everything on the other side was momentum, was possibility, was numbness. He bent down.
The chemical bite at the back of his throat was instant. The hit to his sinuses was a punishing, clarifying shock. Then the false warmth spread through his chest, a lightning bolt of artificial confidence that shot straight to his brain, scattering the ghosts. The hollow didn’t fill. It just became electrified, a live wire where feeling used to be.
“See?” Jackie whispered, her face close to his. “Pressure restored.”
He grabbed her, his hands on the sleek fabric of her dress. It wasn’t desire. It was a convergence of need and chemical propulsion. He kissed her hard, tasting bourbon and the chemical tang. She bit his lower lip in response, drawing a faint metallic taste.
“Not here,” she muttered against his mouth. “This room’s too sad. Where’s the bedroom? Where the magic died?”
He led her down the hall. The master bedroom was all cool sheets and that relentless, perfect view. She pushed him back onto the bed and climbed over him, a red predator against the white linen. Her movements were brisk, efficient. The dress came off. Her body was a testament to maintenance, too—surgical, rigorous.
This was nothing like the frantic, desperate collision of the night before. This was cool, controlled, and transactional. It was a direct deposit into the new account of his life. He was distant, watching himself from somewhere near the ceiling. He performed. She orchestrated. It was flawless and utterly empty.
Afterwards, she lay beside him, smoking, staring at the ceiling. “You’re different today,” she said, exhaling a plume. “Distant.”
“I’m here,” Jim said, his voice echoey in his own head.
“No. Part of you is in a drawer somewhere.” She turned her head to look at him. “That part needs to stay there. Or this doesn’t work for either of us.” She sat up, stubbing the cigarette out in a water glass on the nightstand. “I have to go. He lands at five.”
She dressed quickly. He watched from the bed, the chemical high beginning its inexorable slide into a jittery, thin anxiety. At the bedroom door, she turned.
“The keypad lock,” she reminded him. “And better bourbon.” She gave him a final, appraising look. “Next time, try to be fully in the room. It’s more fun for me.”
Then she was gone. Her Bentley growled to life outside and faded down the coast road.
Silence rushed back in, louder than before. The scent of her cigarette and perfume fought with the salt air. Jim lay still, the fake energy draining away, leaving a deeper, more profound exhaustion. He thought of the bowl in the drawer. He thought of Anna Madeley’s dossier waiting in his email. He thought of the half-empty vial on his kitchen island.
The architecture of his new life felt real, a series of warm, connected chambers. He got up, showered again, and put on a fresh shirt. He had to be brilliant and twitchy for his next call. He walked back to the island, looked at the remaining powder, and capped the vi
He put it in the same drawer as the bowl. The two artifacts of his transformation lay side by side in the dark. He closed the drawer. The machine was running. He had a call to take.