Chapter 18: The Morning After Symphony
The sun was high now, bleaching the marble floors of the mansion a blinding white. Jim stood in the doorway of the music room, a towel around his waist, hair still damp from the shower. The sound hit him first—not melody, but a jarring, rhythmic collision of notes.
Anna sat at the Steinway, naked, her back to him. The fur robe was balled on the floor like a dead animal. One hand moved over the keys, punching out a repetitive, off-kilter bass line. In her other hand, a heavy crystal tumbler swirled with amber liquid. The smell of good bourbon and her particular scent—orange blossom and something metallic—cut through the morning air.
She didn’t turn. “You snore,” she said, her voice flat over the music. “A low, grinding sound. Like stones shifting.”
“I didn’t used to,” Jim said, walking into the room. His bare feet were silent on the Persian rug.
“We all used to do a great many things.” She took a drink, set the glass on the piano with a sharp clink, and let both hands fall to the keys in a crashing, discordant chord. The sound vibrated in the quiet room. Then she went still. “Your phone has been buzzing all morning. It’s beneath the couch cushion. I found it when I was looking for my cigarette case.”
He retrieved it. Three missed calls from Brenda. A text from his lawyer about the Malibu lease agreement. And, predictably, a series from Jackie, growing increasingly impatient. Where’d you go? Then, This bed is cold. Then, just ten minutes ago, Anna Madeley’s at 7. Got it. Can’t wait to see your new dungeon.
He felt a familiar, cold trickle of anxiety. He’d invited chaos, and it was RSVP’ing with enthusiasm.
“Your discretion needs work, Jim,” Anna said, finally turning to look at him. Her eyes were clear, sharp, unclouded by the bourbon. “You can’t shit where you eat and then be surprised by the smell. You told the Malibu woman to come here tonight?”
“I did.”
“Stupid.” She stood, stretching with an unselfconscious grace. She walked to him, took the phone from his hand, and read Jackie’s last message. A faint smile. “But admittedly bold. Which is the only reason you’re still interesting.” She dropped the phone onto the couch. “We have the Getty gala tonight. Black tie. Brenda will be there with Susan. You know that, yes?”
The mention of Susan’s name was a tiny, precise needle to his gut. “I assumed.”
“Good. You should see her. You should let her see you. With me.” Her fingers hooked into the loop of his towel. “But first, we have the afternoon.”
She pulled him toward the piano. The bourbon was on her breath, warm and oaky. She turned, leaning back against the instrument, scattering a few sheets of handwritten, atonal music onto the floor. “Last night was a contract. This,” she said, guiding him into her, a gasp catching in her throat as he entered, “this is just the beginning of us together.”
It was different She wanted him even more. Her nails dug into his shoulders, not to hurt, but to anchor. The piano groaned in protest against their weight, hitting a sustained, dissonant cluster of keys beneath them. Her head tipped back, the line of her throat exposed, the diamonds of her necklace digging into his chest. He moved, and the world narrowed to the scent of her, the feel of polished wood and cool ivory against his palms, the raw, unpretty sound of their breathing.
After, she slid from the piano, leaving a faint smear of condensation from her glass on its gleaming surface. She picked up her robe. “I have a facial at two. Rafael is coming. You should be gone. Or at least dressed.” She glanced at him. She smiled. “The gallery owner from Santa Monica is coming by at four. Donna. She’s bringing over some pieces she thinks will ‘suit my new energy.’” Anna’s smile was a razor cut. “I believe you’re acquainted.”
Jim felt the floor tilt slightly. Donna. Here. Today.
“Stop looking like a startled rabbit,” Anna said, walking out. “It’s undignified. If you wanted a simple life, you should have stayed with your wife and your golf clubs. You wanted complication. Congratulations. It’s delivered.”
He dressed slowly in the empty, sunlit room. The grand piano stood silent, a witness. He righted the music sheets on the floor. Scribbled in the margin, in Anna’s elegant hand, was a single line: The tragedy of the gift is the obligation it creates.
At 3:58 PM, Jim was pretending to work in the west wing study when he heard the doorbell. Anna’s voice, bright and social, floated down the hall. “Donna! Darling, you look radiant. The drive wasn’t too terrible?”
He stayed put, staring at his laptop screen without seeing it. Five minutes passed. Ten. He heard their footsteps on the marble, moving closer. Anna’s laugh, a perfect, tinkling sound. They appeared in the doorway of the study.
Donna looked like California sunshine—a linen dress, artisanal jewelry, her smile easy until she saw him. It froze, then reset, brighter and more brittle. “Jim. Wow. Small world.”
“Apparently,” Jim said, standing. He felt absurdly like a teenager caught throwing a party.
“Jim is… staying here ,” Anna said, her hand resting lightly on Donna’s arm. A gesture of possession. “Business is so much easier to manage from Beverly Hills, don’t you find? Now, the pieces, you said they’re in the car?”
“Yes, I’ll just…” Donna gestured vaguely behind her, her eyes still locked on Jim’s, screaming a silent, furious question.
“Jim, be a love and help her carry them in,” Anna said, turning away. “I’ll have Stefan bring us some iced tea in the garden.”
The moment they were alone in the vast, echoing foyer, Donna wheeled on him. “What the fuck, Jim? You ghost me for two days, and now you’re living with Anna Madeley? I had to hear from Marco at the club that you’d left Malibu!”
“Yes it's true,” he said, the lie automatic and thin. “Something I need in my new life.”
“Really? She’s got you on a leash and you’re thanking her for the collar.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a hiss. “You told me it was complicated with your wife. This is even more complicated. And what’s this about a gala tonight? You’re going with her?”
“Donna…”
“Save it.” She blinked rapidly, looking away. “Just help me get the paintings. I’m a professional, at least.”
They carried in three large canvases, abstract swirls of dark color. The silence between them was heavy and humiliating. As they set the last one down in the garden room, Donna looked at him, all the anger drained, leaving something worse: a need for him. “You look tired, Jim. I guess this is what you need. An anchor for your new life." She smiled.
She left without saying goodbye to Anna. The iced tea sat sweating on a silver tray, untouched.
At seven, as the sky began to soften, Jim stood in his tuxedo, watching the security monitor. A black town car pulled up. Jackie emerged, wearing a dress that was more suggestion than garment. She smoothed her hair, squared her shoulders, and rang the bell.
Anna appeared beside Jim, breathtaking in a column of blood-red silk, her diamonds replaced by a single, brutal emerald at her throat. “Shall we?” she said, looping her arm through his. “Let’s go greet your guest. And then, darling, to the wars.”
He followed her, the silk of her dress whispering against his leg. The door opened. Jackie’s excited smile faltered as she took in Anna, the opulent hall, Jim in his tuxedo.
“Jackie, welcome,” Anna said, her smile glacial. “Jim mentioned you might pop by. Unfortunately, we’re just on our way out. But Stefan will show you to the bar. Help yourself to anything including the chemicals. We shan’t be late.”
Jackie’s eyes, wide and confused, found Jim’s. He gave a small, helpless shake of his head. Anna’s grip on his arm tightened, a silent command, and she pulled him forward, past the stunned Jackie, out into the waiting night where a driver held open the door of a Rolls.
As the car pulled away, Jim didn’t look back. He stared ahead at the glowing path of the headlights.
“One disaster at a time,” Anna murmured, checking her reflection in a compact. “First, we break your wife. Then, we can tidy up your other messes.”
Jim's phone buzzed. It was a text from Donna. I want you to be happy. I'm glad you are with Anna. After talking to you i realize my place in life. You can use me any way you want. I want to please and pleasure you. Kisses. Donna. Jim showed it to Anna. She smiled and looked at him and said, "I'm impressed with you darling. I'm sure you will have fun with her."
The Getty blazed like a spaceship on the hill, all travertine and glass. The air was filled with the clink of champagne flutes and the low murmur of money. Jim moved through the crowd beside Anna, a fixed smile on his face, accepting handshakes and double-takes. He saw Brenda before she saw him.
She was across the room, near a monumental sculpture. She wore a simple black dress. Susan was beside her, saying something that made Brenda smile, a real one, that touched her eyes. She looked relieved. Unburdened. Beautiful.
Then Brenda turned. Her gaze scanned the room, passed over him, then snapped back. The smile died. The color drained from her face. She saw Anna’s hand possessively on his arm, the way Anna leaned in to whisper something in his ear. She saw the whole, ugly, undeniable truth of it.
Susan followed her gaze. Her expression shifted from confusion to realization, as she stepped closer to Brenda.
Brenda didn’t look away. She held Jim’s stare across the gilded room, through the crowd of laughing strangers. Her face showed no rage, no tears. Just a profound, settled disappointment. It was the quietest, most devastating thing he had ever seen.
Anna squeezed his arm, her voice a velvet murmur. “There. Now she knows. The bandage is off. Doesn’t it feel better?”
Jim said nodded. He watched as Brenda turned, touched Susan’s elbow, and began walking, not toward him, but away, toward the terrace and the dark, open night. She didn’t look back again.
He felt the finality of it. A door, not slamming, but closing with a soft, irrevocable click. The hollow space inside him echoed with it, a vast, silent chamber where the ghost of his old life remained and was starting to be replaced with a more interesting new life.
Anna’s fingers tightened on his elbow, a sharp, proprietary dig. “Champagne,” she stated, not asking. She steered him toward a waiter, took two flutes, and handed one to him. The bubbles tasted like bright and refreshing.
“Don’t look so solemn,” she murmured, her smile brilliant for a passing couple. “It’s a liberation. For both of you.” She sipped her drink, her eyes scanning the room over the rim. “Ah. The vultures are circling. Prepare for performance mode, Jim.”
A group of men in impeccable tuxedos descended, their greetings a smooth blend of backslaps and veiled appraisal. “Harding! Heard you’re consulting with Anna on the coastal preservation fund. Bold move, leaving the firm,” said one, a developer with a grip like granite.
“Time for a new chapter,” Jim heard himself say, his voice strangely calm.
“And what a chapter,” another chuckled, nodding appreciatively at Anna. “The best kind of merger.”
Anna laughed, a light, tinkling sound that felt weaponized. “Jim brings a certain… grounded perspective. I tend to float away on ideas. He’s my anchor.” She leaned into him, the emerald at her throat a warm, green eye.
Across the terrace, he saw Brenda again. She was standing with Susan near a floating Richard Serra sculpture, its curved steel blocking part of her body. Susan was talking animatedly, gesturing with her champagne glass, but Brenda was still, a statue in black. She was looking at the city lights below, not at the party. Someone approached her, touched her shoulder. She flinched, ever so slightly, then turned with a polite, vacant smile.
That smile didn't affect him. It was the one she used for distant colleagues, for charity events she found dull. He’d never been its target. He took a long swallow of champagne, the glass steady against his teeth.
“She’ll be fine,” Anna whispered, following his gaze. “They always are. It’s the first shock that’s brutal. Then they get practical. Susan told me about the prenup Poor girl I thought you were quite generous with the $500;000.”
“Thank you my dear.” He smiled lovingly at her.
“ Efficiency is a form of mercy, Jim.” She plucked a canapé from a tray. “Now, we should mingle toward the Barton-Smiths. He’s on the planning commission for the museum wing expansion. I want his vote.”
For an hour, he was pulled through the gleaming crowd. He shook hands, offered vague platitudes about market synergies and legacy projects. He felt like a exhibit, the once-respected Jim Harding, now politely rebranded as Anna Madeley’s intriguing, if slightly tarnished, companion. The whispers were almost audible. Did you see her face? I heard he’s moved into the estate. What a messy business.
His phone vibrated incessantly in his pocket. Jackie, no doubt, alone and angry in the cavernous mansion. Donna, perhaps. Maybe even Cynthia his executive assistant, wondering about the signed contracts he’d abandoned. He let it buzz, a nest of hornets against his thigh.
Finally, near the balcony overlooking the endless lights, he caught a clear line of sight to Brenda. Susan was gone, likely to the restroom. Brenda was alone, gripping the railing. He moved before he could think, disengaging from Anna’s conversation about limestone suppliers.
He approached her slowly, the noise of the party fading to a dull roar. She sensed him, her posture stiffening. She didn’t turn.
“Brenda,” he said.
She was silent for a long moment. The city hummed below. “Don’t,” she finally said, her voice husked out, dry. “Just don’t, Jim.”
“I need you to understand—”
She turned then. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, blazing with a fury that was far worse than tears. “Understand what? That you’re fucking Anna Madeley and others? I understand that. It’s graphically clear. Or that you moved in with her? The lawyer’s letter was very thorough. What precisely is left to explain?”
He had no words. The prepared speeches, the justifications about loneliness and curiosity, they curdled in his throat.
“Was it Susan?” she asked, the name a dart. “Was that the start? Some mid-life fantasy about the neighbor? Or was it just… everything? Was I that suffocating?”
“No,” he managed. “It wasn’t you. It was never you.”
“That’s the worst part,” she breathed, a bitter laugh escaping. “If it was me, I could fix it. But it’s you. You’re broken. And you decided to do your breaking where everyone could watch.” She looked past him, toward where Anna stood, a red flame in the crowd, watching them. “I hope she will be good for you.”
“We will see,” he said, and the admission was a surrender.
Brenda’s anger seemed to collapse inward. She just looked tired. “Thirty years. I loved the man you pretended to be. I hope he’s at peace.” She walked away, her stride steady, leaving him at the railing.
He stood there, finally free. The chill from the stone balustrade seeped into his hands. He felt a presence beside him. Anna. She handed him a fresh glass of bourbon, neat. The good stuff.
“You got your moment,” she said, not looking at him. “Now drink that. We’re leaving.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking,” she observed coolly. “It’s unattractive. The car’s waiting.”
The ride back was silent. Anna scrolled through her phone, tapping out messages. Jim stared out at the blur of lights, Brenda’s words replaying on a loop. I hope she will be good for you.
The mansion was a tomb of cool, quiet opulence. Stefan, the butler, took their coats.
Jackie Mattry in the east guest suite has been… expressing concern,” he said, his tone impeccably neutral.
“Has she,” Anna said flatly. “Tell her Jim will be with her in a couple hours. She’ can stay the night."
She started up the grand staircase, then paused, looking down at Jim. “Coming?”
He looked toward the dark hallway that led to the guest wing, where Jackie was waiting, a problem he’d created. He looked at the sinuous curve of Anna’s spine as she ascended, leading to her rooms, her world, the clean, brutal logic of a pact with no promise of love. The hollow space inside him yawned, wide and final. But it was beginning to be filled with a new exciting life filled with forward motion and women.
JIM JOINS HER. He took the steps, his shoes quiet on the marble, following the red trail of her dress into the shadows at the top of the stairs.
He took the steps, his shoes quiet on the marble, following the red trail of her dress into the shadows at the top of the stairs. Anna’s room was not what he expected. It was stark, almost monastic, all cream walls and a single massive painting of a storm-tossed sea. The only luxury was the bed, an ocean of white linen. She stood at a mirrored dressing table, already removing the emerald from her throat.
“Stefan will have drawn her a bath,” she said, her reflection watching him. “Knowing Jackie i'm sure she has helped herself to some Oxy and coke and Xanax from my private stash. She’ll be placid and even more ready to fuck by the time you go down.” The necklace clattered onto the glass tabletop. “Or she’ll be gone. Frankly, either is acceptable.”
Jim said nothing. He walked to the window, looking out at the geometric shadows of the garden below. The scent of night-blooming jasmine was overwhelming.
“You’re punishing yourself,” Anna observed, unzipping her dress. “It’s tedious. You made a choice. Stand in it.” The red silk pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it and pulled on a black silk kimono. “Or don’t. But the wallowing is a solo activity. I’m going to sleep.”
He heard the rustle of sheets. The dismissal was absolute. He was a tool she’d used for the evening, now placed back in the box. The hollowness in his chest wasn’t grief. It was the absence of pleasure, which was somehow worse. He would be fucking her soon enough. He left her room, pulling the door shut on the dark.
The mansion was silent. His footsteps echoed in the grand hallway as he descended. He didn’t go toward the east guest wing. He went to the music room, poured three fingers of her bourbon, and drank it standing at the window. The piano gleamed in the moonlight, a silent witness to every transaction that had occurred on its surface.
A sound made him turn. Jackie stood in the doorway. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t gone. She wore one of the mansion’s plush robes, cinched tight. Her face was beautiful, her makeup perfect. She looked very young for being 56, and very accepting.
“A couple hours?” she said, her voice shaky but clear. “It’s past one, Jim.”
“I got held up.”
“Yeah. I watched you on TV.” She took a step into the room. “Entertainment gossip feed. You and the Queen making your grand entrance. You didn’t look held up. You looked right at home.” She hugged herself. “Stefan showed me her drug collection and l helped myself. It feels good. I’ve been sitting in that stupid perfect room, waiting. you want her and me?”
“It’s complicated, Jackie.”
“Complicated?” A laugh escaped her. “You’re living with her. And you want to fuck me too. That’s a simple fact.” She walked closer, her eyes scanning the room, landing on the piano. “Is this where you…? Of course it is. Jesus. Classy.”
“This was the arrangement,” Jim said, the bourbon making his tongue feel thick. “It’s a mutually beneficial—”
“Stop talking like a PowerPoint presentation!” She was right in front of him now, her eyes glittering. “You used me. As a… a test run. To see if you could still do it. And now you know you can. I get it. You want both of us and Susan too and I imagine others as well.”
“Yes it's like that.”
Jackie saw it. “Wow,” she whispered, nodding slowly. “Okay. That’s the real answer, I guess.” She turned and walked to the piano. She trailed a finger along the lid, leaving a faint streak in the polish. “My friend Lacy said you’d be like this. She said guys like you, they just can't get enough variety. They don’t change.” She looked back at him. “You’re some dark, interesting prince. Just what I want. And i'm sure I won't be the only one as you already have me and Susan and Anna."
She untied the robe, let it fall. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. In the moonlight, she looked carved from something delicate and temporary. “You brought me here. So here I am. Hopefully not for the last time On the altar.” Her voice was soft, challenging. “Since that’s what we both want.”
Jim felt a surge of something hot and — desire, lust all fused. “Come here, Jackie.”
“Yes. This is the deal, right? This is what I’m for.” She walked toward him, the performance was full of desire, her eyes wanting. “Come on. She won’t mind. It’s in the contract.”
She came up to him and kissed him and then turned and walked toward the bedroom.
He listened to the whisper of her bare feet on the marble fade down the hall to the bedroom. He followed and they went to bed and he took her in all three holes multiple times with her having rolling orgasms and him filling her with his cum for 3 hours before they fell asleep with her back to his chest and his cock still in her ass.
He was now King.