Because I Like It

By Geoffrey A. Feller

Frieda and Julian #4

Julian Phillips is an Off-Broadway director whose wife Daphne is recruited to appear on a reality TV show with other wealthy New Yorkers. Julian is tall, handsome, charming, and a shameless lecher. What could go wrong? Meanwhile, Julian does a favor for his estranged brother to handle an odd discovery in their late grandfather’s estate. As Julian works on a new play, his extramarital affairs slip out of his control and he is confronted with family secrets that threaten to disrupt his home life. Can Julian overcome the flaws he’s grown comfortable with in a time of crisis?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoffrey A. Feller
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311476531

Geoffrey A. Feller

I was born fifty-seven years ago in the Bible belt but grew up in a Massachusetts college town. I am married and my wife and I have moved frequently since we met. We've lived in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, as well as a brief residency in Berlin, Germany. I have worked peripherally in health care, banking, and insurance. In addition to writing, I have done a bit of amateur acting and comedy performances. I am afraid of heights but public speaking doesn't scare me. My wife and I live in Albuquerque with our chihuahua.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE:

THE APARTMENT

Do you think I’m pretty?

I looked at the young lady who’d asked the question and replied mentally that I did think so. But it wasn’t something she was asking me. By now I hoped she knew my opinion.

Hell, I was distracted. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about whether the actress herself was pretty but whether she sounded sincerely anxious in the role she was playing. I didn’t always sleep with my ingénues but had done so this time. She had one of those faces that left the question open to interpretation. Perhaps beauty is ultimately subjective but some beauty is more subjective than others. Casting her in the part had been a good decision and not the result of a bedroom audition. The recreational sex with her hadn’t started until after the first week of rehearsals.

My wife’s good looks were less subjective than that of the young actress up there on the stage. One useful thing about having such a celebrated beauty for a wife was that when I was interested in committing adultery, the object of my diversion would be flattered to have been chosen over Daphne—assuming she knew what Daphne looked like.

Within a year, millions of people would know what Daphne Boyer Phillips looked like. She’d be seen on the next season of an already well-established basic cable TV program, joining the cast of rich Manhattan socialites. As her husband, I would be seen and heard on the show as well.

I had resisted the idea at first, arguing that people with wealth but not class agreed to appear on shows like Manhattan Glamor Queens and its sister programs set in other cities. Accordingly her reputation would suffer among the boards and committees where Daphne was active. The producers of this freak show would encourage gossip and strife among the queens and use clips from the show to draw viewers and please the sponsors.

All true, perhaps, but I didn’t care nearly as much as I pretended. Daphne’s reputation was of little concern to me. I had met Daphne through those boards and committees—not that I had belonged to any of them myself; my late wife Frieda Hamel served alongside Daphne before she’d died.

Frieda had been more of the think I’m pretty? sort of beauty and wasn’t born into the same class that Daphne or I had. Frieda needed and deserved more consideration than what I gave to my second wife. Daphne’s vanity was worse than mine.

Of course, I’d already been on television as an actor here and there over the past several years, even though I was primarily a stage director. I’d even directed a film once although the experience hadn’t been one I ever wanted to repeat. Even now, eleven years later, some people assumed I’d driven the lead actress to suicide; it was something the poor girl had done to herself shortly after the production wrapped. Yes, I’d slept with that girl but she’d moved on to a few more partners between me and that sad overdose.

After making my proper show of skepticism, I finally gave in and signed the release after meeting with a couple of the show’s producers. The two of them had seen my work on the HBO series Storm Over the Potomac, for which my personality seemed suitable for a minor recurring role as a villain. But they’d also dug into entertainment news archives to find my taped interview when I’d been introduced as the director of Show Begins at Sundown. During that minor media event I had presented an attitude of impatient superiority.

You could really stir things up on our show, I was told.

And so I was watching a pre-dress rehearsal run-through with a hand-held camera pointed at me. It was dark in the theater but the producers had agreed not to use any bright lights to make it harder for me to watch the performances. I was told they had some kind of night-vision filter that would probably make my pale skin and blond hair appear more ghostly than usual; my rather popular green eyes would look black. I happily supposed I would come across as a lurking Satan when the moment was telecast.

I was occupying an end seat so the cameraman and assistant producer were standing in the aisle, alternating the shooting between me and the cluster of actors on the stage, all of whom had been eager for the a chance to be seen on a cable program. Sitting next to me on my right was another actor, whose scene would be staged later.

He was a handsome young man, a little older than the leading lady, and had been cast as her brother. I was keeping track of the camera motion in my peripheral vision and while they were taping the discussion over whether the character of Gloria was pretty or not, I reached over and took the actor’s hand in mine.

When the camera scanned back towards me I heard some indistinct murmuring between the assistant producer and the cameraman. I squeezed the actor’s hand, cueing him. He leaned in and whispered in my ear. I’d already told him it didn’t matter what he said since the microphone wouldn’t pick it up.

Your hand’s cold, he told me, making me smile naturally.

Then the actor kissed my neck.

I kissed his cheek in return and then addressed the performers on the stage.

Let’s stop for a while, I said, projecting my voice across the empty rows of seats in front of me.

Then I glanced at the representatives from Manhattan Glamor Queens.

You have to leave now. I’m afraid that camera’s become a distraction.

But Julian, the assistant producer replied as the camera kept rolling, you said we could record the entire rehearsal!

I’ve changed my mind, I said, standing up in the hopes of using my well-above average height to add a greater degree of authority. Run along and use what I’ve given you.

The pair obeyed and I supposed the and use what I’ve given you part would be trimmed at the editing stage.

I had invited two of the cast members out after rehearsal for drinks and a sleepover. I took them to a spare apartment Daphne probably didn’t know about that I kept for such purposes. The subjectively pretty actress had been there several times by now and for variety I was adding the actor who’d kissed me for the camera.

These two had been cast as a brother and sister for the play so they shared some physical similarities. Both of them had dark hair, brown eyes, and athletic bodies. Standing behind me, neither she nor he could quite see over my shoulders. But I was standing in between them on the elevator ride up to the ninth floor, my arms draped over each of them to show affection.

How old are you? I asked the actress.

Twenty-two, she said, glancing up at me with an amused frown. You already knew that.

And you? I asked, looking down at the actor.

Twenty-four.

Why d’you ask, Julian? The actress pulled at my necktie to regain my attention.

Just making sure I’m not older than your ages combined.

At forty-three I was in the clear. Not that it mattered; even if I wasn’t quite twice her age, let alone his, I was yet another middle-aged man using a position of authority to lure some firm young flesh to be exploited.

I’ll bet you hooked up with your share of older ladies when you were my age, the actress said.

The elevator doors opened.

Yes, I admitted; I had been at her age when I fell in love for the first time. Tracy had been in her late thirties and was married. But Tracy never loved me.

I held the actress’s hand as we stepped over the threshold into the corridor. The actor seemed shy—perhaps because the actress and I had already established an extracurricular activity to which he was a latecomer. I put my hand on the small of his back as we walked, hoping to give him encouragement.

The apartment was a one-bedroom unit in a building occupied mainly by licensed professionals such as nurses and teachers; police officers and firefighters; middle managers and petty bureaucrats. I didn’t know of any other trust-fund millionaires who had discretionary flats like mine in this building. I had a few acquaintances whose mistresses had been given condominiums to use a base of operations but I wasn’t looking for any such degree of commitment.

The corridor walls had dark wood paneling and the lighting was soft, coming from sconces near the ceiling. The carpeting was thick and muffled our footsteps. It was well past midnight and hardly any sounds came through the doors of the half dozen apartments between the elevator shaft and Julian Phillips’s love nest.

The place was small; one of those New York apartments that had been built even before television sets were in virtually every home. But I liked the cozy feel, preferring it to some hotel room, and had decorated it with furniture that might resemble what had been within these walls fifty years ago.

That meant installing a real liquor cabinet. I mixed some drinks to ease into what I wanted from my young friends. We sat together in the living room area and talked about current affairs, my guests seeming to grow uncomfortable with my moderate-to-conservative politics. I changed the subject, finding it more congenial to talk about favorite restaurants near the theater.

Small talk behind us, I undressed the actor by the sofa while the actress shed her own clothes. Next they worked together to strip away my suit and tie, slacks, and everything else. The actress started kissing my bare chest and the actor followed her lead. When their faces met they kissed each other, a pleasant surprise for me. I showed my gratitude by hugging them close before leading the way to my bed, which was large enough for this threesome; the mattress was inches from spanning from wall to wall in that little room.

So I did better than to pleasure the actress while the actor watched and pleasure the actor while the actress watched. I was able to watch the actress and actor pleasure each other and otherwise have a more satisfying few hours of pan-sexual exercises than perhaps any of us had anticipated.

Of the three of us, it turned out that the actress was the heaviest sleeper. The actor joined me for coffee at the kitchen table while she continued to snore under the covers. I was wearing my black cotton robe and he was shirtless above his red boxer shorts.

Could I ask you a favor, Julian?

What’s that? I asked, lighting a cigarette.

I’d hate for my boyfriend to find out what I was up to last night, the actor said.

What makes you think I’d be the one to tell him? I asked, blowing smoke out the small open window next to the table.

Nothing in particular. Just saying. You might meet him, like, at the cast party and…

I can be discreet.

There are a couple of things he shouldn’t know. First of all, that you and I had a fling.

He’s jealous, your boyfriend?

He’d be jealous because he has a bit of a crush on you.

I laughed and shook my head.

Don’t be ridiculous, I said, picking up my coffee cup. I’ve never met him.

But he’s seen you.

I’m not famous; the people who’ve seen me on TV don’t know what my name is because they don’t care.

I think you underestimate yourself.

I smiled and nodded for him to continue.

"Okay, so Aaron didn’t know who you were before I got this gig. He asked me about my director. I said you’d been on TV on that HBO series. Aaron looked up your credits online and he watched some episodes of that show and he also found that episode of Arrest and Convict when you played that big-time defense attorney."

I laughed again.

Based that performance on one of my father’s law partners. I couldn’t model the part on Father because he’s too crude.

Oh, your father was a law firm partner?

Yes. It’s just the kind of firm that would defend that kind of wealthy client, only they don’t handle criminal cases. So Aaron liked what he saw?

He’s already been jealous because I get to see you in person, talk to you, take direction from you…

If only he knew what direction I was giving you in my bed.

"That’s another thing. It would just kill Aaron if he knew I’d had sex with a girl."

Doesn’t he know you’re bi?

I’m not really bi, really.

I think you are, by definition. Your response to Olivia seemed easy enough. Neither of us forced you into it and you gave a more than respectable performance with her. Listen. I’ve been trifling with men since college, starting as experimentation. I enjoyed it and ever since then I get together with a man when I feel like it. So what? It’s not like it’s some bold choice I made. I see no need to march in some Pride parade because I’m the B in GLBT.

The actor scowled; I assumed he saw value in activism. Not that he was wrong about protests and visibility per se but I was simply not interested in participating, not even as an opportunity to get laid.

Does your wife know you’re a B in the GLBT?

Yes.

What does she think about it?

I tried to give her the idea that male companionship is a thing of the past.

Like some ‘experiment’ you did as a college student?

Oh, no. Daphne knows damn well my theater work has involved sex with men and women. I couldn’t deny having same-sex encounters after Yale when somebody in your position might turn up and contradict me. See, my first wife gave me license to have extramarital sex just so long as it was work-related. But Frieda was more liberal than Daphne so she didn’t find homosexuality objectionable.

And your Daphne doesn’t like fags?

I smiled at his bitter tone.

She’s afraid of the STDs I might pick up from a lovely stud like you.

Thanks for calling me lovely.

Anyway, she figures I’ll have an empty fling with some stage bunny like Olivia but she doesn’t feel threatened by that any more than Frieda did. On the other hand, Daphne doesn’t know about my setup here.

Does Daphne fool around, too?

She denies it but I assume that’s a lie. It was different with Frieda; we’d share stories about other partners. It was kind of an aphrodisiac; like the way some couples watch porn videos together.

The actor emitted a snort and his face grimaced.

What about you and Aaron?

What do you mean? Do we watch gay porn?

No. Do you have an open relationship?

Not exactly.

What’s ‘not exactly’ about it?

I see other guys but Aaron doesn’t.

"You’re sure he doesn’t?"

I don’t live in some sneaky, cheating world with him. You assume Daphne’s lying because that’s what you do. Aaron says if I have the urge, I can act on it when he’s out of town.

Out of town and acting on his own urges.

The actor frowned at me, plainly offended by my presumption.

"No. I’ve told him he can but he doesn’t. If Aaron had sex with someone else he knows he can tell me about it."

You gave Aaron permission because you feel guilty about your license to screw around.

You know how I feel?

Speculation. But why should Aaron allow it? Surely he gave you permission first and then you extended the same courtesy whether out of guilt or for some other reason.

Some other reason that’s none of your business.

Fine. We were having a frank discussion and I now you want to stop. I guess that’s up to you.

The actor drank some coffee, apparently considering what to say next.

What’s Aaron do for a living? I asked before he could formulate a reply.

He’s a financial auditor. Sometimes he travels to check regulatory compliance at the branch offices for his company. So he flies to places like Chicago and Cleveland. West Coast, too.

His firm is based in Manhattan?

Yes.

Is Aaron older than you?

Well, yeah. Not old enough to be my Dad, like you, but older. Why?

Just for my understanding of your situation.

The actor scowled at me.

Give it to me, then. What have you figured out about us?

You’ll be offended and maybe even walk out on me.

What’s it to you? You got what you wanted from me already so why should it matter if I get lost?

Those nice pecs give me ideas about having a little more.

Asshole, the actor said, folding his arms over his chest like a topless girl concealing her boobs.

You’re a struggling young stage actor in an Off-Broadway production and you’re living with a somewhat older man who’s supporting you on a good income. You’re a very attractive boy, Blake. To him, you’re a trophy. He doesn’t have your looks, does he? He’s probably sexier than he realizes but since you’re his younger, hotter boyfriend, Aaron might be afraid you’ll run off if he shows jealousy. You don’t want to lose him, either.

Because I love him, you prick!

I’m sure you do, I replied, stubbing out the last of my cigarette, or you wouldn’t have worried about crossing the line into bisexuality.

"I am not bisexual!" Blake exclaimed.

Listen to you. In my father’s day, you’d be denying that you’re queer because of one drunken night with some drag queen. You know what I think?

I think you’re dying to tell me what you think.

Aaron could be upset over Olivia getting your cock because sexual orientation isn’t supposed to be a choice. I’m sure you and your friends at the Pride events won’t even say ‘sexual preference’ because it implies a choice. Your entire political agenda is based on asserting biological determinism. You can’t help being who you are so Christian bigots are wrong to limit your liberties.

And you think it’s all a choice, is that right?

I think it’s more of a choice than you’d care to admit and less of a choice than the fundamentalists want to believe. Since I think being gay is as good a choice as being straight, I have no personal stake in what makes people choose either option.

Blake stared at me for a moment as I let him consider my opinion.

Maybe you’re not compelled by genetics to make a choice, he said. That might explain bisexuality. Because you’re bi you think everyone else is.

Possibly, I admitted. I do think male sexuality is less of a choice than it is for women. Men are driven more by the physical act itself while women are motivated by emotional connection, regardless of the other person’s gender. That’s not to say you don’t have an emotional connection to Aaron but you still feel lust for other men, right?

Blake nodded slowly.

The first time I saw your head of curly blond hair, I wanted to run my fingers through it, he said, reaching over to do it again.

I enjoyed the caress until his hand clenched and he pulled at my hair. I gasped from the sudden pain.

I’m serious about keeping last night a secret, Blake said in a low and earnest voice.

I took hold of his wrist but did it gently. Blake relaxed his grip.

I don’t want to harm your relationship, I said. Really, I don’t. Listen. If Aaron lusts for me, set us up for a little fun if you think that might help. He might appreciate it.

Blake shrugged.

There’s a difference between admiring some face on the screen and actually getting involved in the real world, he said, sitting back in his chair. I like the idea, don’t get me wrong. Especially if you’re man enough to take both of us on at the same time. But I’ll let you know.

I woke Olivia up after Blake left the apartment. She demanded and received more sex from me, getting up for a shower and to dress only after that. I was already wearing one of the spare suits I kept on the premises when Olivia started to gather her clothes from the living room floor.

What did you and Blake talk about?

Whether or not he’s bisexual, I replied, watching her from the sofa as she pulled her panties up.

That’s a question?

Apparently the real issue is he doesn’t want his boyfriend to find out it was impossible to resist your phenomenal sex appeal.

Olivia giggled and started to harness her breasts with the silken C-cups of her bra.

Have you met his boyfriend? I asked, lighting a cigarette. This Aaron?

Not met him, Olivia said, bending down to pick up her dress.

She looked at the outfit to see how badly wrinkled it was, frowned, and gave it a shake.

I should keep a change of clothes here, Olivia said as she slipped the dress over her head. You’ve had me over often enough.

But have you seen him?

Seen who? Olivia asked impatiently.

Aaron, Blake’s boyfriend.

Didn’t you hear what I said?

Yes, I heard you. You said you hadn’t met him in a tone that makes me think you’ve seen him at least.

Yes, yes, I’ve seen him!

Olivia came over and sat down on my right knee.

What about me keeping a change of clothes here? she asked, bracing her hand on my shoulder.

The next thing I know you’ll be asking if you could live here.

The neighborhood’s nicer than where I’m living now. Would you let me do that, Julian?

No.

No, she repeated with a pout. I thought not. Why are you interested in Aaron, anyway?

I had a theory about him and Blake. Blake said he’s older. Did he look older?

Yeah, he did. Not only that but he’s nowhere near as hot as Blake. Not ugly, I guess, but sort of dorky-looking. I don’t know what Blake sees in that guy.

I gather Aaron takes care of Blake financially but Blake says they’re in love so I’m not one to judge.

How could Blake sleep with us if he loves Aaron?

He’s one of those people who can experience love with one person and doesn’t mind acting on lust he feels for someone else.

That’s what you do, isn’t it? Olivia asked.

She let herself fall back against my chest.

Yes, I admitted. But I haven’t loved anyone since Frieda.

Don’t let Daphne hear you say that, Olivia murmured into my collar.

I hoped this actress was too cynical to believe she was in love with me. She seemed mature for her age in some respects but I thought I’d better cut her loose as soon as the play’s run was over. There were already a couple of candidates I had in mind to replace her, both of whom had been to the apartment. If I ever gave one of these women a spare key to this place, I’d be dangerously close to getting married again.

That was not my ambition.

CHAPTER TWO:

THE BROTHER

I had been living in New York City for fourteen years, making my home for the entire time in a three story brownstone house near Central Park West. Frieda had died there two years earlier from a massive stroke at age forty-nine. While she hadn’t looked forward to turning fifty, I had been hopeful for many years ahead of us. Frieda and I had met in the late ’nineties when I was living in Minneapolis.

While I had grown up outside of Boston before attending Brown and Yale, Frieda was a native Minnesotan. I had been looking for some experience in regional theater and found it after a few false starts. Frieda was a manager at a lending company and our paths only crossed by chance at a downtown nightclub. Neither of us really belonged in a place like that so we left together to get better acquainted.

She was tall, slim, and pretty with curly red hair and nice legs. Her insecurity was often expressed through a sardonic sense of humor that matched my own. What I had told Blake about our open relationship was substantially true but applied more to the first eight years of our marriage than the remaining five. Frieda seemed relieved that I was growing more monogamous as we aged together and I wanted to please her.

I had been shattered when I found my wife lying dead on the living room floor on November 18th, 2012. Shattered and vulnerable to someone ready to pick up the pieces.

That someone had been Daphne Boyer, now Daphne Phillips.

I married Daphne to be with someone. Not just anyone, either. I was amused by her at first and was drawn to her beauty and social standing. It hadn’t mattered that Frieda had come from a thoroughly middle class background, not given how I felt about her. Yet with Daphne, it was like marrying one of those debutantes my mother had wanted me to date while I was in college instead of the eccentric artists I preferred to mix with.

Daphne had certain useful contacts among philanthropists who sometimes helped finance theatrical productions. I didn’t necessarily need their money yet their contacts could be useful. What I brought to the marriage for Daphne was my face and figure along with my financial assets.

Now I had to return a call to my well-bred glamor queen. I had listened to a voice mail message from her at my apartment that morning but waited until I was home before calling her back, several hours later.

Darling, Daphne greeted me, probably because other people were in the room with her, one of them was probably holding a video camera.

Sorry I took so long to call, I said, staring at Daphne’s picture on the smart phone as I walked slowly towards the kitchen.

She had thick, raven-black hair and brown eyes. Her skin was tanned in the photo but it was naturally as pale as mine. Although Frieda had been taller and thinner, Daphne was still long-limbed and sleek along the lines of a runway model.

I’m sure you were busy with that play of yours. Speaking of that, did the network crew get in your way?

As a matter of fact I got rid of them after they’d shot about twenty minutes of the rehearsal.

I found a bottle of wine in the refrigerated rack and pulled it out with my free hand.

That’s not giving them much to work with. You know how many hours of stuff they need to cut down into a forty minute episode?

I put the phone on speaker and placed it on the kitchen table so that I could open the bottle. Our housekeeper Marianne turned away from the stove to bring me a corkscrew.

I gave them a sarcastic remark they can use. Otherwise I did warn the producers I won’t tolerate any disruption of my workplace. I’m happy to hang around cocktail parties and charity auctions and keep in character for the show. However—

All right, all right.

Could I speak to you privately? I thought I heard voices in the background.

Give me a moment.

Should I call back?

Let me call you. No more than five minutes.

I poured a glass of wine, white Moselle, and took a whiff of the sauce Marianne was making for the swordfish on the menu for dinner. She smiled up at me as I nodded my approval. Marianne had been the cook and housekeeper since Frieda and I first moved to the house. We’d agreed to hire a mature, motherly type for the position. Marianne had been my age back then, which made her close to sixty by now.

Like my actual mother, Marianne had interacted more warmly with Frieda than Daphne. Considering how little Gabriella had in common with my servant that should have told me something.

By the time Daphne called me back, I was sitting in the living room in my reading chair, wine glass within reach on an end table.

So what’s the big secret you want to talk about? Daphne asked in a sharper tone than she’d used a moment ago.

Not a secret as much as a matter of discretion. But it might have been worthwhile limiting you to yes and no answers in front of the camera.

Get to the point, Julian.

The point? I had a call from Randy yesterday right when I was about to go to the theater.

What did he want?

"What he always wants, Daphne. Did I not ask you to have him make his requests through you? It was embarrassing to have that man approach me directly."

Good God, Julian. He’s family—your brother-in-law.

"Randy Tawes is not my brother-in-law. He just happens to be my sister-in-law’s husband, more’s the pity."

"Semantics aside, Randy is family."

Your family, I said with a sigh. The Boyers with their spiraling debt and crumbling net worth. So what does your sister Cassidy do? She goes and marries someone who’s just like your father: a financial invalid.

"Well, I didn’t marry someone like that," Daphne said in what seemed a mix of bitterness and sarcasm.

I don’t mind if you married me for my money. Not as long as I can think of you as an old-fashioned girl who wants a man who can provide for her and keep her in the style to which she’s become accustomed. But to continually bail out your family—

Julian! Why is it that when poor, well-meaning Randy Tawes humbles himself in front of us in a time of need you suddenly hate to give up any dividends from that precious old-money trust fund? Not even when it might keep a roof over my sister’s head and my nephews’ heads? But you have no problem spoiling Frieda’s bastard half-sister, that illegitimate love child from the backwoods!

C.C. Escher has more brains than Cassie and Randy put together, I replied calmly; she was trying to get back at me for insulting her family but I wouldn’t be baited. She deserved to have that potential nurtured.

Oh, sure. So you paid her tuition at Columbia. And bought her books. And covered her room and board. Don’t deny it; Frieda told me about it before she died.

Why should I deny it?

C.C.’s been out of college for almost a year and she’s married. But you still give her gifts, don’t you?

I’m fond of her, which is more than I can say about my in-laws or anyone they’ve married.

You bastard, Daphne hissed.

I sipped down some wine and crossed my ankles.

Call Randy and have a talk, I said. Lecture him or commiserate with him, I don’t care which way you take it. Get a figure from him and then call me with whatever Randy says he needs. Or text me. I’ll wire the funds to his account if he’s being reasonable. Meanwhile, use the black and gray card to buy yourself something extravagant while you’re on location. Something that might impress the other glamor queens. Say we had a fight and I wanted to make up with you or say I’m always doing it for no reason at all. Your discretion. Maybe it’ll end up in the episode.

You bastard, Daphne said in an entirely different tone.

After dinner, I went to my study on the top floor of the house. Marianne had gone home by then and I was blissfully alone. I never indulged in extramarital sex under this roof, one of the few rules I had carried over from Frieda’s time.

Physical relations with Daphne were the most successful aspect of our marriage. Aside from her stunning looks, my second wife—at age forty—was experienced, mature, and skillful. There was nothing lacking in the bedroom that motivated my infidelity. Non-sexual frustration was the cause; perhaps a safety valve or even bartered interest on the uncollectable loans I’d given to the members of the extended Boyer family.

Daphne didn’t like coming into this room with its framed photos of Frieda and her sister hanging on the walls, along with a portrait of my mother and another of her parents. At least none of these pictures were on display anywhere else in the house except the finished basement, another one of my sanctums.

My study had the usual home office equipment and was otherwise furnished with impractical old-fashioned furniture along the lines of what was in my apartment. My laptop computer sat on a wooden desk designed for typewriters; I had been told it had once sat in a mid-20th Century newspaper office before steel workstations became the rule.

I opened the laptop lid and logged on to the internet. After a cursory check of the email inbox, I brought up the web site for the Flair! Network (that exclamation point as much a part of its name as the letters spelling it out).

I found a drop down list of programming and clicked on Glamor Queens of Manhattan, listed between Glamor Queens of Hollywood and Glamor Queens of South Beach. There were two other series in this mold for Las Vegas and Chicago’s North Shore as well. The Manhattan version was in production for its third season by now.

I pulled up a screen containing thumbnail portraits of the five queens, including Daphne. Among the rest, I had only known Laura Leigh Lussier before getting involved with the show. Laura had been an old personal friend of Daphne’s and was among the first cast members. It had been she who’d recruited Daphne.

Laura was as old as Daphne but was shorter and more voluptuous. She had thick, dark hair and a mischievous smile. Her husband was a music promoter named Craig Rowan, a small and swarthy fitness enthusiast.

I clicked on the other three cast members in turn since I barely knew any of them. There had been an orientation luncheon several weeks earlier and introductions had been made. Since I was supposed to soon be appearing in a group sequence with all the other queens and their consorts, it seemed a good idea to refresh my memory about these strangers.

Jessica Franks was a petite brunette who’d retired from a dead-end acting career to marry a very successful software designer named Edward Franks, an ingratiating middle-aged man whose chubby homeliness was mitigated by his income. I wondered if it was like Blake and Aaron on a larger scale.

Alison Pelger was an entrepreneur in her own right, marketing a socially responsible makeup products. She was tall and chubby with brown hair and a penchant for heavy necklaces. Her husband was the novelist Gilbert Kerrigan from the science fiction genre whose popularity with readers exceeded his critical reputation.

Robin Naughton was the only fair-haired glamor queen, a tall, athletic, and spoiled heiress descended from Braddock Whitman, the wholesaler tycoon. Robin’s husband was the amiable Justin Findlay, a retired tennis star who still had a good income from product endorsements.

Despite all my reservations, I had found the first, off-camera, meeting with the rest of the cast amusing and even enjoyable. Although Robin seemed either shy or aloof, Jessica, Alison, and Laura were flirtatious and lively. I hoped they’d behave that way for the program and keep me engaged.

I’d already had a fling with Laura over the summer. She didn’t want Daphne to know about it but just maybe she’d spread the word about me among the glamor queens if that hadn’t already happened.

I was smirking at that notion when my phone rang. It was some surprise that the call was from my younger brother Francis; I hadn’t seen him in several years.

That scandalous affair with the married woman had caused a rift between me and parents and brothers because the woman’s husband was one of the partners in my father’s law firm. My exile was through mutual consent although my maternal grandparents kept me in regular contact. It took ten years for my mother to approach me for an awkward yet eventually successful restoration of our relationship; Francis and his twin Richard grudgingly followed her example but my father remained aloof from me. I didn’t ask Mother to persuade him to behave otherwise because I hadn’t forgiven Hugh Phillips, either.

Both of my brothers were in the practice, Phillips, Roderick, and Beckworth, based in