He knew it was dangerous getting closer to Kali. He could mess up everything with SunTech if she found out about his kinky sculpture business. He couldn’t risk having her rat him out to her boss and get him fired from the project. But he was sure he could hide it. He had been very careful to set up his website, Hunting Art, with no connection to his real life. It had been good enough to pass Selina Stern’s vetting process for him to make it to the finalists. Now he just had to keep Kali from finding out about Hunting Art until after the project was finished.
When he had to speak to Kali about the permits for the demolition on the plaza, he kept it professional. He could hear the wall in Kali’s tone as she replied, and he knew that she was at work and probably dealing with Selina at the same time. But hearing her was enough to get him through until Saturday.
He didn’t even want to play with Minx. She came by the next evening. He made Minx clean his shower and scrub the toilet and wash the sheets so everything would be pristine in case his big date with Kali went better than he expected. Then he told her to make him a grilled cheese sandwich. When Minx finished cleaning up, as he was taking his last bite, she stood in the proper submissive position with her head up and eyes down, hands clasped behind her back, eagerly expectant.
He sent her away without touching her. Minx knew she was being punished, and he was too smart to punish her with attention. She would learn not to come over unless he told her to. She could have blown this entire gig for him.
He didn’t tell her when to come next. He wanted her to know how much he disliked her little tricks to get more from him than he wanted to give.
And he wanted to see what would happen with Kali.
Kali…
***
Kali thought about Hunter a lot over the next few days, wondering what would happen on their date. She had already let him get intimate with her, if you could call hair-pulling intimate. She hadn’t even kissed him! But it sure felt sexy. The only thing she knew about kinky sex was from that book everyone was reading, but that was just a romance novel with a billionaire protagonist and his virgin lover. That had nothing to do with her life.
She knew Hunter wasn’t the right man for her. She could never be the kind of uninhibited girl Minx was. And he would never be the rock-steady partner she was looking for. It was sad because there was so much chemistry between them. She knew chemistry didn’t mean compatibility, but it was really hard to ignore her feelings. Even when she reminded herself over and over again how he charmed everyone. She was just one among many to him.
So she thought about Hunter, wearing a groove of him in her mind. Trying not to, but finding herself daydreaming about his hand clutching her hair, and her hips grinding into him shamelessly.
He texted her on Saturday afternoon saying: I’m looking forward to seeing you at 8. It was the first text she had gotten from Hunter. She wondered how she would feel seeing his name in her phone after the project was over. She had a very bad premonition that it would all end in her deleting his number from her phone in tears.
She had never looked forward to any date with so many mixed feelings. The worst thing was that she felt like she couldn’t talk to anyone. She was curious, but afraid to go further down this path. It was the same feeling she had when she moved to New York City—it was scary and thrilling because she didn’t know what would happen next. Wasn’t that the sort of life she had wanted when she moved here, something more unpredictable and new?
She wished she could talk to someone about it, someone other than Hunter. But she hadn’t spoken to her college friend Brittany in years, and they never had much in common other than their mutual set of friends. Nobody else would even begin to understand.
It also bothered Kali that nobody knew she was going out with Hunter. Not that she thought he would do anything bad to her. But she didn’t know him, and he was… kinky.
So once she was ready, she ran downstairs to see Pam and Karen. Thankfully, they were home.
Karen answered the door. “Kali! Come in, so glad you came down. We were just fixing some spaghetti, would you like some?”
“I’m going out to eat.”
“I can tell!” Karen stood back to examine her. “You look great. Who are you going out with?”
Kali had picked out her best jeans and a silky shirt that draped over her breasts, exposing a tasteful amount of cleavage. Not to mention her high heels and best lingerie—not that any guy would see her underwear on a first date! She just liked the sexy way it made her feel.
Kali followed Karen into the narrow kitchen, a mirror of her own kitchen two floors above. The same mid-80’s oak cabinets and battered Formica countertops, the same wood floor. Pam was stirring a big pot on the stove, an apron wrapped around her curvy figure. Pam was reserved—she was a researcher who worked at the VA Hospital in Brooklyn. Karen was lean and spare, always moving and talking, always upbeat. She worked in a big midtown hotel in the AV department, setting up the equipment for conferences.
Suddenly facing them both, Kali felt embarrassed to mention her fears. “I’m going out with Hunter Munro, the artist who won the competition to redesign the plaza at SunTech. He’s making a giant sundial for us.”
“Nice!” Karen said. “Is it a date-date or a work-date?”
“It’s a date-date. Our first. So I wanted to let someone know.”
Pam nodded over at the stove. “It’s always a good idea. You never can tell who you’ll meet in the city.”
“Anywhere!” Karen agreed.
Kali hesitated, not quite sure how to bring it up. “He says he’s kinky.” She looked between them. “Do you know anything about that?”
“What? Like ropes and whips?” Karen asked, wrinkling her nose.
“I guess.”
Karen shrugged in wonder. Pam was turned away toward the stove, but she said, “Why do people always assume gays know everything about freaky sex?”
“Oh! I’m sorry!” Kali exclaimed. “I didn’t mean it like that. You two are just the only people I’ve gotten to be friends with since I came here. I don’t know anyone else to ask.”
Pam took one look at her and abandoned the spaghetti to come to Kali, touching her arm. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just a reflex. I know you’re not prejudiced.”
Kali nodded, wishing she hadn’t asked them.
But Pam wouldn’t let it go. “Have you talked to him about it?”
“A little bit. He’s done a few things with me, and I’m just not sure about it.”
“Has he pushed you into doing something you don’t want to do?”
“Yes. But he apologized. He said he shouldn’t have tried anything with me while I was at work. And before I agreed.”
“That’s not good,” Pam said flatly. “It’s your choice what you do. You have the right to stop anything at any time.”
“One thing I liked and the other I didn’t.” She liked the hair pulling, but she didn’t like thinking about what he said to her, how he had wanted to call her a “bad girl.” It made her squirm.
“Have you slept with him?” Karen asked.
“No. I’m not sure he wants to have sex with me. Not in the usual way. And I’m not sure I want to do it his way.”
“Well, you better be sure,” Pam said. “If you let someone tie you up, you damn well better know they’re going to untie you again. If you don’t, you can get into serious trouble.”
Karen saw that Kali was worried, and she reached out to give her a hug. “Just stay safe, okay? You have my number, don’t you? Why don’t you tell him you’re going to call me in a few hours? That way he knows someone is keeping track of you.”
Kali thought that sounded like a great idea. Though she was sure that Hunter wouldn’t hurt her. He would be stupid to try. She could nix his contract in a second if he got out of line. But it seemed like sound advice regardless of who she was dating.
By the time Hunter texted her saying: I’m downstairs, Kali had made her up mind that it wasn’t going to
work out between them. She couldn’t get serious about a man who was the kind of person her friends had to warn her about. She would have to consider this an adventure, and that was the end of it.
She grabbed her purse and ran down.
One look at Hunter, and all her good resolutions flew away. He was so sexy, standing there on her stoop. His face lit up when he saw her. It was flattering. Especially coming from such a handsome man.
“Beautiful!” he exclaimed.
“Thanks. You look good, too.” He was also wearing jeans, this time with a sleek button-down shirt. Kali was glad to see she had judged the tone of their date correctly.
Kali was very aware that Pam and Karen’s front window was right next to them. Karen peeked through the curtain, getting a good look at Hunter. Then with a little wave, she was gone. Hunter never saw it happen.
“I thought we’d stay in your neighborhood. I know a great Afghan restaurant nearby. Do you eat meat?”
“Yes.”
“Good. It’s near the bridge. Do you mind a walk?”
“I love to walk.” It was a pretty night out, and since it was Saturday, there were plenty of people on the sidewalks.
“You sure picked the right neighborhood to live in,” Hunter said. “It’s changed a lot since I first moved here. It used to be much more affordable, but then everyone discovered it.”
“I’m lucky. My floors are slanted and the kitchen needs a desperate renovation, so it doesn’t cost too much to rent.”
In that way, they talked about the city and what it was like living there and trying to succeed in a place where everyone came to try to succeed. Most of the people that Kali met came to New York from someplace else, trying to make a better life for themselves.
As they moved on to their past, Kali told him a little bit about her professor mom and dilettante dad, and what it was like growing up as an only child. He was surprised at that, saying she didn’t seem spoiled at all. She didn’t want to tell him that her father was the one that she and her mom had to take care of. She loved her father because he was interesting and fun, but he was not very reliable.
“My mom and I have a really great relationship,” she told him. “We always have. I guess she treated me more like a sister.”
In turn, Hunter told her about his roving childhood in city after city as his father chased job after job, all of them in trucking. “Sometimes he’d be gone for weeks. But he was hard to deal with, and we never seemed to make ends meet. My mom was working, too, so I took care of my younger brothers and made sure they got off to school and did their homework. I’ve been working summers since I was fourteen. One place was a metal fabricator. They let me sweep up and do odd jobs at first. That’s how I got interested in metal casting, and when artists came I got to see how it was done.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“High school was the most I got. I’m self-taught. My first piece was accepted in an outsider art show that got some press. There were paintings by prisoners and spray paint artists. People who never had any training. There’s something raw and primal about that kind of art that I’ve always respected.”
It was fascinating, but Kali knew her mom would hate the fact that she was dating a man who only had a high school degree. It proved even more that Hunter wasn’t her type. She was drawn to him, but she didn’t understand him.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked as she went silent. “The restaurant is only one more block.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to offend you.”
“You can ask me anything. How can we get to know each other if we tip-toe around everything? Besides, I’m not easily offended. Or surprised.”
“Okay, since you insist. After a chaotic childhood like that, I’d think you’d want to pick a stable job where you know where your next meal is coming from.”
His eyes opened wider. “I thought you were going to ask me why I want to dominate women.” He considered her question for a moment. “I think people tend to recreate the environment they were raised in. I’m a child of uncertainty, so I’m comfortable with uncertainty. My youngest brothers were mostly spared the chaos because they relied on me until my parents settled down in Harrisburg. David just finished his college degree. It took him six years because he had to work his way through, but he’s used to working hard because he always had to.”
“That makes sense, I suppose.” She sneaked a look at him. “So why do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Dominate women,” she awkwardly echoed his earlier phrase.
Hunter laughed. “We’re here. So that question will have to wait for dinner.”
She liked the easy, confident way he spoke to the host and the wait staff at the Afghan restaurant. He had reservations for a table in the garden. Their low table was partly veiled by potted trees and vines climbing on the trellis. Over the top of the fence they could see the Williamsburg Bridge, with the curve of the suspension cable lit up by lights. Tiny Christmas tree lights were threaded through the trees, and their table was lit by several candles.
He had arranged for them to be seated in the secluded spot. It was a very romantic gesture, one she wished more of her dates would do. There was no romance left in the world, so to find it in Hunter was the last thing she had expected.
“Do you drink wine?” he asked, and when she agreed, he ordered a lovely red wine. “Now, what kind of meat do you like?”
With that, he proceeded to grill her on her dining preferences. Garlic, onions, green vegetables, nuts, fruits, sweets… she felt like he was taking mental notes the whole time. His interest was a little overwhelming.
“Now you know as much about what I like to eat as my own mom,” Kali finally said.
“Then you won’t mind if I order for us?” Hunter gave her a smile and ordered several dishes when the waiter returned. “It’s part of the culture that the dishes are communal. We can share.”
The first dish arrived, with what looked like a pile of rice and a large flatbread. Hunter ripped off a small piece of the bread and filled it with the rice and meat mixture. “This is pulao. They mix rice with lots of different ingredients. This is lamb meat.” He folded the bread over the pulao and took a bite.
Kali copied his example. She liked the taste. “Good. Different, but good.”
“It’s one thing I like about living in the city. You can try every food there is in the world if you stick at it long enough.”
It was dangerously seductive to Kali. She imagined more dinners like this as she and Hunter explored the world through the food in the city. She liked listening to his voice and watching his hands as he delicately picked up each bite of food in his fingers. Maybe it was because they weren’t using their utensils, but it made the meal seem more intimate.
She was sliding down the path again, wondering if he could be a real romantic possibility. She liked so much about him. But there was an elephant in the courtyard, and she rushed into it to bring herself back to reality.
“So why do you like to… you know.”
“Dominate beautiful women?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I like to be in control. I had to learn early on to take care of things, so that’s what I do. That’s why I create things out of nothing, from just an idea and a feeling. Not only in my art, but in my life. I’m working with you tonight to create this experience, and who knows where it might lead? But if I play off you, your responses, then we can dance together in a new way for both of us.”
That sounded promising. “So… is there anything in particular you like to do?”
“Other than hair-pulling?” He said it suggestively, like he was remembering the way he had kissed her neck in his studio. “I mostly take inspiration from the moment. But lots of people do have their thing. You could call it a fetish. Some men like breasts, while I love a fine butt. You, my dear, have a very fine butt.”
Kali lov
ed it. He made it easy to sit there and be complimented, like she was made to be admired and he wanted nothing more than to admire her. But at the back of her mind was doubt. A guy this good with words had to be dangerous. He was going to suck her in and make her fall in love with him while he dashed off to the next unique flower he came across.
“I like to play sex games,” Hunter explained. “We decide what we’re going to do, and either one of us can stop what’s happening at any time.”
“But isn’t it about pain? S&M?”
“Did it hurt when I pulled your hair?”
She considered it. “Yeah, sort of, but it felt good.”
“It’s about stimulation, intense sensations, but it has to be done in a way that feels good. Nobody likes to stub their toe. But I bet I could give you the same amount of sensation in a way that would make you orgasm. It’s all about building it up slowly, mixing erotic cues with stronger feelings.”
She blinked back at him, considering that.
“Even more,” he added, “BDSM is about power exchange. You give up control to me, and I take us on a journey together.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you.” Just then their waiter arrived with two more dishes. Hunter waited until he was gone, to ask, “Will you do what I say for the rest of the meal? I won’t do anything overtly sexual here in public or ask you to. And you can stop the game any time you want.”
“Here? Now?”
“Why not? You’re curious.”
Kali remembered what Pam had said about the dangers of going home with someone and letting them tie you up. If she was going to try it, why not here with all the restrictions that would place on them?
“Okay. What do I have to do?”
Hunter laughed, but there was a wicked edge to it. “Just eat. Here—“ He filled a small bite of bread with some blackened meat and sauce from one of the new dishes and held it out to her, right in front of her face.
Kali took the bite from his hand. “Mmm! I like that one. What is it?”
“Beef and dumplings in a curry sauce.”
She swallowed and took a drink of water, and by the time she was ready for another bite of the delicious dish, Hunter was holding up a small prepared bite of dumpling and sauce in his fingers.
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