MATCHSTICK MEN: a Hunter Dane investigation

by Adira August

  "Go on, your turn," Becks told Spanko. "You have two minutes to move. If you run out of time or move the wrong ones, you get penalized."

  "But what about him? He didn't have to take a turn." She pointed at a strikingly handsome man nestled under the arm of his Dom/husband. The Dom was a whippy Italian ski instructor. The sub, the MIT educated brother of a local billionaire sex toy manufacturer.

  Beckford shook his head. "He can't play, he's a certified genius," he said.

  The sub pouted. The rules of matchstick were: Each sub had three turns to solve the puzzle. Each failed attempt earned a penalty their Dom decided on and administered. These penalties often involved a leather paddle Becks kept on the table.

  "Well, when's her turn? She's no certified genius, is she?" The sub asked, waving a hand at Louise Heston Bryant. "EllBee" was a whip thin, black haired, pointy-faced divorce lawyer to wives of the abundantly propertied.

  "Each sub has to have a Dom," Becks explained.

  "And in fact, I am a genius," the lawyer said. "Which makes me wonder why he's not allowed to play?"

  She smirked nastily at Hunter, who'd joined the group. "Or did you memorize the puzzle book?"

  Hunt ignored her. EllBee claimed she wanted to be conquered. But no Dom had yet been able to command her submission.

  Hunter suspected she wasn't a submissive at all. He suspected she was an extreme masochist who got off frustrating men who enjoyed control over women. She had a staggeringly high threshold for pain, and taunted sweat-covered Doms to "make her feel it."

  She arrived at the club armored in a bespoke business suit with pencil skirt, "fuck you" red spike heels and a visible patina of contempt. All accompanied by enough hostility to power a nuclear sub. She could turn a happy, relaxed group of kinksters into a muttering mini-mob by her mere presence.

  As much as Chez would have liked to ban her, she knew the secrets of too many important people to risk pissing her off.

  EllBee Bryant had worked her way through all the straight Doms and a couple of the gay ones. But never Hunt, who simply wasn't interested. On the nights she found him there, she did what she could to bait him into taking her on. He wasn't tempted.

  Tonight, she sneered at him, boldly holding his gaze, making herself as impudent as possible. He could feel the Doms tightening up, wanting to quell the bitch. Hunter blinked placidly at her.

  Her nostrils actually flared. Then, something caught her attention behind him. A quirk of the lip signified her amused contempt.

  "You forget to put your dog out after you beat it?" she asked, sweet as cyanide-laced applesauce.

  LittleBit, red-eyed and blotchy, knelt at the back of the crowd, at Hunter's eight o'clock. Her face crumpled at Bryant's words.

  Becks scooped up the layout and waved Hunt closer. "Okay, challenge round. Who wants to take on our undefeated champion?"

  "What do I get when I win?" Bryant asked, eyes glittering, still on Hunter.

  "What you want?" Becks asked.

  "He kneels on the couch and I peg him for the crowd."

  There was perfect silence around the banquette.

  Hunt nodded his agreement at Bill Beckford. Becks paled. Chez stepped forward.

  "Do you have your own equipment?" he asked her, referring to the strap-on dildo she'd need to fuck Hunter. "The club doesn't provide - "

  "In my car," she said.

  Chez went whiter than Becks. His lips pressed. He didn't interfere unless someone was very literally in danger. If the vindictive EllBee wasn't careful, there was real danger for Hunt. But Chez could do nothing now, and possibly not until the damage was already done.

  A low chittering ran though the onlookers. The Doms knew Hunter. Knew that with all the things he accepted--restraints and floggers, whips and ice and fire--he never allowed anyone to touch his asshole. They also knew he'd submitted totally, with no limits, to Camden Snow.

  But Cam closed and bolted the doors of the "Church," the playroom they were in last Friday. What he did to elicit the wildcat screams and throat-shredding roars they heard from Hunter Dane, no one knew. It was quite possible, Cam being famously unpredictable, that Hunter was still an anal virgin.

  "And if you win," Becks asked Hunt, "what do you want?"

  Hunter closed on Bryant, looking her over, as if considering a purchase.

  "She resigns her membership immediately and never comes back," he said.

  "Whoa," came a voice from the back. "Talk about all-in."

  "A thousand on the Champ," Ad Symonds called out.

  "Five." This from the billionaire's brother.

  Suddenly the air was full of cries of bets in support of Hunter that Symonds wrote down.

  Chez held up his hands and waved them quiet. "Nice to see the enthusiasm, but there's no one to cover you, you know."

  "I'll cover it. I'll cover it all," Bryant snarled.

  Chez took the timer away from Beckford, explaining, "I don't have a bet on anyone."

  "Would you mind clearing the middle of the couch?" Hunt asked the Hispanic spanko and her Dom.

  "Making a space for your reaming, there, champ?" Bryant asked.

  Hunt ignored her, fishing the handful of matches from his pocket.

  Becks took a position in front of the table, one of the participants on each side.

  "You have to turn around while he does the layout," he told Bryant.

  "Certainly," she said, complying.

  Hunter lined the matches up carefully, so the figures were clear.

  Becks handed him a piece of paper and a pen. Hunt wrote out the instructions for the game. As he handed them back he whispered, "Exactly this."

  Bill Beckford nodded and grabbed Hunt's shoulder. A fast squeeze of encouragement. He gave Hunt a square of cardboard that seemed to be the disarticulated remains of a pizza box lid.

  Becks stood in front of Bryant.

  "I'll read the instructions now. You turn around whenever you're ready and the timer starts. If you want the instructions repeated, say 'instructions.'"

  She nodded.

  Beck read it out so all could hear. "There are three rows. In each row, the figure on the left converts to the figure on the right. What belongs in the empty space in the last row? You have one minute."

  "I thought the turns were two minutes?"

  "This is the challenge round," Becks told her. "It's harder. For both sides. And the champion sets the penalties."

  Bryant narrowed her eyes and seemed to decide she believed him. She about-faced. Chez touched his stopwatch screen.

  Doms and subs huddled over their cells, watching timers countdown. The billionaire's brother glanced over the layout and smiled. He whispered to his Dom.

  Bryant caught this and gave up a second firing death lasers at him with a look. Then focused harder, muttering to herself. "... two move there, and those two ... But ... if that - wait - "

  A murmuring swelled. Becks called for quiet. But it didn't stop the frisson of excitement through the crowd as the clocks reached zero.

  "Time!" Chez called over a muted cacophony of dings and buzzes.

  Hunter placed the cardboard over the layout. Bryant shot poisonous looks at him and the billionaire's brother.

  "Kneel on the couch," Hunt told her. He caught Symonds' eye and looked him toward the banquette. The Dom nodded.

  She knelt, facing the side.

  "Face the back, lay your stomach over the top."

  Symonds got behind the couch, positioned in front of Bryant, ready to grab her if she overbalanced. He laid one hand on the back of her neck so she couldn't raise up.

  "Good, girl," Hunter said, pricking at a feminism he was sure was born of hatred even more than politics. "Skirt around your waist, everything else below your knees."

  It took her a while to work the tight tube of wool up over her hips to whistles and shouts of "Work it, baby!"

  They saw no response from her, of course, facing away, bent over. She had less difficulty with her pantyhose. But with
her head down, she had to lift up on her toes, to get them below her knees. When she did, she stopped.

  "Panties, sub," Hunt reminded her.

  "It's a thong you mental midget," she shouted from her head down, face-hidden position.

  Beckford called out to her. "The champion decides the penalty. Do as you're told or you forfeit."

  She ripped down the thong as fast as possible, again raising up to get it below her knees.

  "Satisfied?" she called out.

  "Hold your arms out, the Dom will take your wrists. And don't speak," Hunter told her. In all his instructions, he remained dispassionate.

  He motioned to Symonds to move back. The Dom didn't need to have it explained. He wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled until her hips teetered on the back of the long banquette.

  Hunter approached her. "Open your knees, for us, honey." He heard her roar of rage behind closed lips. Her knees opened, the pantyhose and panties stretched and then slid down to her ankles.

  "Good job, sub," he said absently, reaching forward to spread her outer lips apart, exposing her vulva. She was flaccid and dry, her labia flat and folded.

  He cocked his head as if finding a fascinating insect under a rock. "I don't know, Doms, it looks … sharp," he said.

  They came forward eagerly, crowding around for a close look.

  "Jesus, you could shred your johnson in that thing."

  "Does she even have a clit?"

  "Maybe she's trans and they like -"

  "Uh-huh-uhhhhh!" said the spanko Hispanic sub peering through the crowd of Doms. "Mine is much prettier than that."

  "Dessicated mushrooms are prettier than this."

  "The clit's probably under that flappy bit. Lift it up."

  "I'm not touching that, you lift it."

  "Hey, you know who has a great pussy? K-girl."

  "Oh, yeah, wish she was here."

  "And LittleBit," Symonds said, looking at her.

  "True. Beautiful. All pink and moist."

  "Like a rosebud with dew on it."

  "Pussy poetry!"

  Hunt winked at the sub, who colored prettily and ducked her head to hide her smile. Good. She was okay and everyone could see she was okay.

  Now, if he just had his puzzle worked out correctly ...

  "Wait a minute, you're gay as a fuckin' kite, when did you ever see LittleBit's bits?"

  "In the Church on the Angel. I notice shit," said Symonds.

  "If we're all done examining the sub in question?" Hunter asked the general assemblage. "My fingers are starting to cramp."

  "Yeah, yeah - we're - "

  "So done."

  Symonds pushed Bryant away like she smelled bad and walked around to join the group.

  "At least I didn't have to look at it," he told them.

  Hunt asked if anyone had a wet wipe and four subs and a Dom held out packets. He thanked them, selected one to use and put the rest into his pocket.

  "Turn two," he told Becks. He took his position behind the table.

  "Challenger? In position, please?" Becks said to Bryant, standing off to the side, head down, smoothing her skirt.

  She rounded on him in a fury. "What the fuck was that? He was supposed to use the paddle!"

  Chez stepped in. "The matchstick rules for the challenge game are that the champion sets the penalty. It's his call."

  "Yeah?" she snarled into his face. "Well, guess what? I am a genius, and that"-- she stabbed a red lacquered nail at the cardboard over the layout --"has no solution!"

  Her eyes blazed wet and red, but did not spill over. "These wimpy-ass so-called Doms designed all this to humiliate me! I should sue your ass to the Continental fucking Divide!"

  Chez put up his hands as if surrendering. "I'm sure there's a solution. I mean, this Dom is quite trustworthy. Anyone could have accepted the challenge."

  "Are you as stupid as you look?" She was screeching, now. "It's a set-up! They planned it beforehand, no one was going to volunteer."

  "Uh - well - I mean, you didn't have to, either - so - I don't see how ..." Chez looked to Hunter for rescue.

  Hunt considered Bryant. "Do you yield?" he asked.

  Her face went bright red and her mouth became a hard line. If she yielded, he had to show the answer. If she lost all three rounds, he didn't. If she yielded and the puzzle had no solution, she won.

  She shot a glance to the couch where she'd been kneeling. Back to Hunt. Her eyes narrowed.

  "You're bluffing, pig," she said.

  He nodded. "You forget how to call, sub?" he asked with as much contempt as he could wedge into the last word.

  She grinned. "You overplayed it, fish.” She looked to Becks. “I yield the game," she said.

  "The challenger has resigned; the champion must show the solution," Becks announced.

  Hunt reached into his pocket and brought out the remaining matches.

  "Allow me," said a new voice, rich and warm. The tension in Hunt's chest melted as he looked up, knowing who it was.

  Camden Snow stood across the table with his hand out, palm up. He turned to Bryant and smiled shyly. "If you don't mind, that is?"

  Even Bryant couldn't refuse the handsome sex god at her side. His stellar public manners and self-effacing demeanor belied his reputation as exacting Dom and sadist. And the dimples helped.

  She nodded.

  Hunter dropped the matches into Cam's outstretched hand.

  The simple feel of his fingernails grazing Cam's palm, caused the ice blue eyes now fixed on Hunt's face to darken. Hunt felt an answering pull in his groin. No way.

  He placed his fingertips carefully on the edges of the cardboard.

  "You ready?" he asked Cam.

  "Sure," Cam shrugged, jiggling the matchsticks in his hands.

  Hunt slowly lifted the cardboard, so as not to disturb the matches.

  The billionaire's brother drifted over, watching Cam instead of the board.

  Cam's eyes moved over the layout. He blinked. His head tilted. He smiled. "Oh, cool!" he said, and rapidly arranged the matches in his hand in the empty space.

  "Correct," said Hunter.

  "What the hell is that supposed to be?"

  She looks deranged, Hunt thought.

  Bryant had Chez by the arm, pointing in triumph at the matchstick layout.

  "You see? You see? It's nonsense, those aren't even numbers!"

  Chez looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I - uh -" He looked from Hunter to Cam and back.

  "No one said the answer was a number," Hunt pointed out.

  "In. Struct. Tions," she demanded in triumph.

  Becks cleared his throat. "In each row, the figures on the left convert to the figures on the right-"

  "FIGURES!" she crowed. "The answer has to be numbers. And don't tell me those are numbers in Sanskrit!" Her lips stretched wide over her teeth in what no one would ever mistake for a smile. "You lose, asshole!"

  "You never played matchsticks before, did you?" Hunter asked. "The word 'figure' doesn't mean number." He pointed to Becks. "The Dom made a wineglass figure-"

  "Goalpost!" Becks insisted.

  "I beg your pardon, goalpost figure. Matchsticks uses all kinds of figures. Triangles, squares, houses. Words.'"

  "So how does the answer work?" Chez asked. "Because I'm looking at it and I still don't get it."

  "Look at it again,"-- the crowd pressed forward --"and you'll see the three figures on the left, covert to the figures on the right by inverting. You don't move anything. It's obvious if you follow the positions of the match heads. Try focusing on the center row."

  "Sonuvvabitch," someone said.

  Hunt cocked his head at Bryant. "You bet it all on a game you didn't even know the rules to. You made assumptions. Then refused to consider that the facts might not fit those assumptions."

  Hunter shifted. His body tightened, he seemed to become taller, his face darker, the planes sharp-shadowed under the lights. He stepped into Bryant's space, a breath aw
ay.

  "Ship it, sub."

  Louise Heston Bryant turned on her exceedingly sharp heels and stalked out.

  A cheer went up and Doms gathered around Hunt to punch him in the shoulder and pound him on the back.

  "Beautiful!"

  "No, magnificent!"

  "You scared the shit out me, man, I thought she had you."

  "Hey, she owes us money!"

  "Dude. Pretty sure we're not getting paid."

  Becks announced he was framing the chit with everyone's bets on it to hang in the entrance in case the bitch ever came back. Chez shouted that a round of drinks were on the house.

  "Let’s celebrate the departed!"

  "You mean 'departure' Chez. She left; she's not dead."

  "Now there's an idea!"

  A wave of laughter as the celebrants slithered like a giant amoeba into the hall to the bar. The billionaire's brother and his Dom hung back.

  "Jag!" Cam exclaimed with delight. He scooped the Dom, also known as Giacomo Ferri, into a bear hug. They kissed each other on the cheeks.

  Hunter offered his hand to the sub. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Hart. And thanks for the help. You really psyched her out."

  "Call me Nick, please," Nicholas Justice Hart said. "I couldn't let you have all the fun slaying the dragon."

  The four men sat down in the abandoned banquette. Nick took Jag away from Cam and settled at his side. The four chatted about the game. Spanko came back with drinks for all of them, courtesy of a grateful Chez.

  "I didn't know you had it in you," Cam said to Hunt.

  "What?"

  "Cruelty."

  Hunter shook his head. "No, that's inflicting pain for the sole purpose of enjoying another's suffering."

  "Yet here we are?" Jag, gestured loosely around himself at the club, his accent heavy. "Many here practice cruelty. It is almost art, I think."

  Nick whispered in his ear.

  "I see," Jag nodded. To Hunter, "You say 'sole' purpose. So, it is not cruelty if there is another thing served?"

  "The pleasure of the masochist, the sub," said Cam. "Is that what you meant, Hunt?"

  "I think this discussion is too deep for me. It's been a long night, so"-- he offered his hand to Nick and Jag --"I'm headed home. Good seeing you."