Good Girl (27 page)

The question was, running away to where?

She wasn’t nearly kinky enough for him.
Give her a little rough sex, some hair pulling and bondage. Stroke her body and
pinch her and smack her flesh until she climaxed even harder. But you could
keep the
yes, Sirs
and the collars and the expectations that proved she
was out of place in his world.

She glared at the red roses. They said
I
love you
, but she didn’t know what he really meant by that. It could be a
big ploy to get her to go out with him again, so he could draw her back into
his web.

Then she found something unexpected by
clicking on a link under a photo of a sculpture in his profile gallery. It took
her to an off-site website called Hunting Art.

Hunter made erotic art. Lots of it.
Sculptures of abstract nude bodies merging and shifting, most of it really
explicit, and most of it involving bondage or people crying out as flesh was
cut and bodies were constricted by rope. The website listed where he sold his
sculptures at conferences around the country that catered to sexual minorities,
along with erotic art festivals and science fiction conventions.

A chill washed through her. SunTech
didn’t know anything about this. Selina would have rejected Hunter from the
competition if she knew. It would be terrible publicity if the media found out
that their plaza was being designed by an infamous S&M artist.

That’s why Hunter had told her at the
Paddles to not mention SunTech. He had never said a word about this business to
her. And neither had his friends. She wondered if he had told them not to say
anything to her.

Controlling everyone around him, as
usual.

Kali searched his website and nowhere on
it did she find Hunter’s last name. She found nothing on FetLife that included
a recognizable photo of him. A Google image search came up with traditional PR
photos and shadowed snapshots showing his profile, nothing else. Doing a search
of his real name and Hunting Art, nothing came up.

Kali tried to calm down. They only had
six more days to go until the launch. She could manage this. Even if the media
found out about his kink-connections, she could deal with it. It was her job to
make sure both SunTech and Hunter came out of this looking fabulous.

She began to plot her media response if
anything was exposed. After what happened with Selina’s viral video, which was
still climbing at 128,000 views, Kali was well aware of how quickly something
bad could get around. So she searched for sound bites on erotic art and BDSM,
and found the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom which did advocacy for
kinky community clubs and businesses. She decided if there was a media crisis,
she could reach out to them for help.

After hours hunched over the computer,
Kali finally forced herself to go out and get some fresh air and something to
eat. After her frantic day on the computer, it was soothing to be back in her
old routine, taking a seat at the long counter in the sandwich shop, and
ordering a spicy cream cheese and cucumber sandwich. She hadn’t eaten one since
Hunter had turned her life upside down.

But the whole time, she was thinking
about the world she had glimpsed through the computer and the places Hunter had
taken her. A whole subculture she never knew existed. The NCSF website had said
what Hunter told her: parents lost custody of their kids just because they were
into BDSM and someone told child protective services. And people were fired
because they were kinky. Or arrested for domestic violence even when everything
was completely consensual. The persecution they faced, and the danger to real
lives because of it, was not something she had ever imagined.

But it made sense. Look at her—she was
kind of ashamed about how much she loved this kinky stuff. And didn’t she
secretly think it was a little too strange? After all, she couldn’t imagine
leaving her kids with the babysitter while she went to Paddles with her
husband.

Then again, why not? They were all
adults there, and nobody was doing anything they didn’t want to do.

So then why didn’t Hunter tell her about
his kinky sculptures?

***

On the way into her building, she ran
into Pam and Karen. “How’s it going with your boyfriend?” Karen asked.

Kali grimaced, and had to force herself
to say, “We aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

“Why? What happened? Why didn’t you say
something?”

Kali sighed. “I got a promotion at work,
so technically I’m his boss and we can’t date. But I’m kind of glad in a way.
It was going so fast that I needed a break.”

Pam nodded. “You do what you’ve got to
do.”

“I’m trying.” She tried to change the
subject. “Hey, did you two ever go to the Paddles?”
They exchanged looks. “Yeah,” Karen admitted. She stopped, then laughed
awkwardly. “It was an experience. A lot of fun.”

“That’s the way I felt about it,” Kali
agreed. “But I don’t want a steady diet of it.”

“Yeah,” Karen said again. “But we liked
it. We’ll do it again sometime.”

Pam didn’t say a word, but she was
smiling in a way Kali had never seen. It was nice that they were so compatible.
She had never understood how important that was more than now.

She had been right about getting away
from Hunter for a while, to let her mind clear. The more she found out about
the things he had done behind her back, including lying by omission about his
X-rated sculpture business, the more it looked like Hunter was not the right
man for her.

Chapter 18

Hunter ordered another big bouquet of
flowers to arrive for Kali at SunTech on Monday morning. Not roses, because
then she would have to explain too much. A mixed bunch of tropical flowers with
a sealed card that said,
I love you.

He followed it up the next day with a
basket of brownies. She had said at that memorable meal in the Afghanistan
restaurant that she liked brownies, but he had never gotten them for her. He
put a sealed card with the basket that said,
I love you.

That afternoon, a text came from Kali:
Stop.

Hunter ground his teeth together, but he
knew he couldn’t try to persuade her when she had used her safeword on him.
When a woman said stop, you had to stop or you were a monster.

She kept using her safeword with him. It
made him feel like an idiot. He was supposed to be able to read a woman so well
that he could bring her right to the edge without going over.

But with Kali, he kept stomping all over
her limits like an ignorant clod. No wonder she was pushing him away.

He paced among the ball-shaped benches,
absently looking at his sundial from all angles. It was installed and ready to
go, except for two missing medallions that were being recast and sent from the
foundry. When they had tried to install them, the bolt holes had cracked.

Except for the IV, it was complete. But
it was hard to see how it would look with the plywood fence still crowding
around it.

Hunter wasn’t satisfied. At first he thought
it was because of Kali, but then he gradually realized he wasn’t happy with the
sundial. From every angle, his eye kept going to the missing medallion. It
created a dark patch that was larger than the medallions positioned in front of
each bench. He kept trying to blank that out in his minds’ eye, to see what the
problem was.

Finally he got as far back as he could
behind the sundial, looking towards the building, almost on the sidewalk. It
was the perspective most people would see the sundial from.

Something was off…

He didn’t know how long he stared at it,
but he jumped when a voice asked from the nearby gate, “Something wrong?”

It was Kali. Looking at him curiously.

“Yeah. Something’s wrong. But for the
life of me…” He stared back at the sundial.

“I think it looks amazing,” Kali said
honestly, looking around, too. “I can’t wait to see it with the fence gone.”

“Me, too.” He was surprised they were
suddenly standing there talking so friendly-like. Then again, she always
surprised him.

Kali checked her watch, looking at where
the shadow lay. “Is it right? It’s three o’clock.” She walked over to look down
at the medallion where the shadow crossed its edge. “Yes, this one is III.”

Hunter slowly followed her, realizing
she had found the problem. “You can’t see the numerals from a distance. That’s
it!”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It’s a clock. That’s the purpose of a
sundial. But when I left the patina on the bronze, it darkened the medallions
so much that the numbers blend into the background from a distance. They need
to pop.” He considered them. “I’ll have to polish the numerals on the
medallions.”

She cocked her head. “I think you’re
right. It would look nicer with the numbers shiny.”

“Kali, you’re an inspiration.” His voice
fell. “What would I do without you?”

But instead of responding, she shifted
away from him. “Hunter, I came out because I needed to talk to you about
something sensitive. I don’t want to do it in the office because someone might
overhear. Out here, with the sounds,” she waved at the noise of the traffic on
the street, “I thought this would be okay.”

“Sure.” He was glad he hadn’t pushed it.
He knew she would come talk to him, in her own good time.

“It’s about your website, Hunting Art.”

Uh-oh…
“You’ve seen
it?”

“Yes. I found it this weekend. Why
didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You know why, Kali. SunTech would have
canceled the project if they found out. And you would have felt obligated to
tell Selina.”

“I should tell Mr. Ryan.”

“What’s he going to do now—rip out the
sundial because I’m kinky? I’ve kept my erotic line separate from my big public
works. I know that no corporation is going to want to be associated with
artists who make erotic art. But my sculptures are what pay my bills.”

“So you do know what this means if it
gets out to the media? Didn’t you think I should be warned? Or were you just
hoping that phone call from the
NY Post
never came in—‘Hello, does
SunTech know your plaza designer is a prominent S&M sculptor?’”

“This launch is one-off publicity. Once
it’s over, it’s over,” Hunter insisted. “Nobody will care after the fact that
I’m kinky.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she agreed. “But the
launch is this week. I want you to deactivate your website. And your FetLife
page. Just as a precaution.”

He looked at her sideways. “You know about
FetLife?”

“Yes.”

“That means you have a profile. What’s
your name?”

She ignored that. “I want everything
taken down that associates you with BDSM for at least the next couple of weeks.
We don’t need another burst of bad publicity for SunTech.”

He considered it. “All right, I’ll do
it. When I get home I’ll shut both down. But there is Google cache. I can try
to get them to delete it, but it may take a few days. And frankly, if someone
makes the effort to find Hunting Art, they will find it. I’ve done a lot of
shows.”

“Selina didn’t find anything connected
to your real name during our background checks before we put your design into
the competition, so I’m hoping we’ll be safe if your main portals are closed
down.”

Hunter nodded. “My friends will wonder
what happened, but I can stall them for a couple of weeks without raising
suspicions.” He would use his relationship with Kali as an excuse, if he had
to.

“Good.” She turned away as if she was
done with the conversation.

“Wait, Kali. We need to talk about this.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“You should have. Once we were really
together, you should have told me.”

“I was protecting you. If I was outed
early in the project, I wanted you to be able to say honestly that you knew
nothing about Hunting Art.”

She frowned. “I don’t need you to
protect me, Hunter. Especially when it comes to my job. I have to make my own
decisions.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do.” She was serious.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You manipulate me constantly to make me
to do what you want. You say it’s because you’re protecting me, or you’re
helping me, or because you want me so much. But it really comes down to—you
always have to be in control.”

“That’s not true. I’ve stopped when you
told me to. Every time. I also stopped seeing Minx, in spite of what you
think.”

“I know what you want, Hunter. And you
keep trying to push me further and further into it. I don’t want to be
submissive in my real life. I may like it during sex, but that’s it for me,
Hunter. And you’ve never understood that about me.”

“You’ve loved everything we’ve done
together. Admit it! I think it’s fear that’s stopping you now. You’re afraid
that if you submit to me, you’ll let me override your own good judgment. That
you’ll lose yourself. But that’s not true.”

He reached out for her in spite of
himself. He had to touch her. Had to be with her.

But she pushed him away. “No, Hunter!
You keep running all over me, trying to force me to be with you. To be what you
want. I’m not going to do it.”

Kali scraped his hands off her and
hurried away. He took one step after her, then stopped himself.

She disappeared through the gate in the
fence. And he was alone again without her.

He wasn’t trying to force her into
anything!

He wasn’t.

Hunter went through a black cloud of
fury, pacing among the benches of his sundial. Denying over and over to himself
that he was trying to mold her into something she wasn’t. Kali took to
submission like she was born to it. Trained into it by her mother, actually.
Following the example of her father, who had to get away in order to be free…

Like Kali had run away from her mother
to the big city.

She was trying to get away from that
kind of control. That’s why she refused to give it to him.

Just because she was suited to her toes
to be a slave, that didn’t mean she
wanted
to be a slave.

He had never considered that.

Kali was right—he hadn’t understood her
until now. He wanted to run after her, to tell her that.

But it was only one half of the equation.
She said that he wanted a slave. That he expected her to be a slave because
that’s the kind of relationship he wanted.

He stared at the medallions, lost in
thought. Thinking of past girlfriends and submissives and yes, slaves. Even the
ones who didn’t call themselves “slave” fulfilled a lot of the same things for
him—their main desire was serving him, letting him choose when and how and
where he saw them.

He hadn’t had a relationship for many
years like he had with Kali, hanging out and dating, watching a movie on TV,
and cooking breakfast together in the morning. Maybe that’s why it was so hard
sometimes. Maybe that’s why he felt more comfortable in the dominant role, why
most of their time was spent having sex or with him drawing her.

Because those times when they were
casually entwined on the couch were the ones that scared him the most. Because
he wasn’t driving the bus.

Just like he wasn’t driving the bus with
Kali now.

That’s why he was flipping out, pacing
around in front of the security cameras, probably entertaining the security
staff to holy hell. He was out of control.

He loved her. Why didn’t he tell her
that? He had the chance while she was standing there. He should have said it
first thing. And then kept saying it.

But he was scared. She didn’t love him.

He forced himself to turn around and
walk through the gate. He made sure the chain was locked. Then he walked away,
every step a nightmare.

He had made such a mess of things.
Finally a girl who fit him like a glove, and because he fell head over heels in
love with her and felt unsure of himself, he did nothing but try to control of
her.

Hunter wandered around downtown
Manhattan, too distraught to return to work and too worked up to stay put
anywhere. Until he came to the Hudson River. The roiling water was dark even in
the afternoon sunshine, stretching a mile away to the other side, and extending
as far as he could see on either side. It was massive, unstoppable. It made him
feel very small.

If Kali had gone through her own
problems growing up, and that pressure had turned her into a diamond, so had
he. He knew his fears came from his past, growing up and needing to be in
charge, so everything would be okay for his brothers and his mom.

He realized he hadn’t even called them
since he had seen his brother weeks ago. He hadn’t talked to his father since
he found out he got fired. Or his mother to find out how she was doing. His
brother had left several messages, giving him bulletins, and he had transferred
the money every week. But that was it.

Gazing out at the black water rushing
by, Hunter felt like a coward. A villain. He had been distracting himself with
Kali, ignoring the latest tragedy in his family’s life. She had asked him about
it a couple of times, now that he thought about it. But he had brushed off her
questions every time.

He realized he was doing exactly what
she accused him of—setting up their relationship with strict boundaries,
keeping the intimacy away, keeping the sex in the center ring. Isolating them
in a bubble that wasn’t real. How could it be real when she didn’t even know
that he earned his living selling kinky art?

Kali was right. He had tried to
manipulate her, and kept things from her. Why hadn’t he taken the collar away
from Minx? Because he had expected life to continue on as it always had, that
he could spank any girl he wanted to because it was her birthday. That he would
be able to play with other people, maybe with certain restrictions like no
intercourse or no kissing. Whatever Kali wanted…

But Kali wanted monogamy. She didn’t
want to be pressured into being sexually open in order to please him. She
refused to play that game, and he had to admire her for it. He was used to
women offering to do anything to win his love. It got old after a while.

This was the first time he would do
anything to win a woman’s love. He had danced around her questions every time,
but now there was nowhere else to go.