by Madison Faye
What followed the breakup was an existential crisis like nothing she’d experienced before. Why hadn’t she been good enough for him? It hurt her pride and put dents in her worldview. Colton was an average person, and she’d been secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t have any cause to break up with her. She was the better-looking one, objectively speaking, and she was also the better student—excluding her most recent class failure, of course. The question that remained, therefore, was depressing in its implication. What made her so unlovable?
Her thoughts hadn’t run that deep before. Being with Colton had allowed her to live life on a surface level and to bury any kind of introspection, including some of her long-held secret fantasies. When Colton left, her fantasies reappeared with a vengeance she could no longer ignore. She was ashamed of her longings and felt alone because they weren’t something she could discuss with anyone.
Kayla daydreamed of embarrassing, shameful scenarios. Her own kinky thoughts made her blush. She could only imagine what kind of reaction they would cause in another person.
Kayla turned on the ceiling fan and sauntered to the bed, where she propped herself up with some pillows and placed her laptop on her thighs. Although the windows were shut tight, she could hear the sounds of people playing tennis outside. The tennis balls popped sharply against the concrete and were followed by corresponding grunts of exertion.
Kayla preferred indoor activities, especially in the heat, so she entertained herself by checking her various social media sites for new posts. Her friends’ profiles confirmed what she already suspected. Everyone was having fun on their summer vacation, while she was stuck at college to retake a class she’d failed and contemplate the meaning of her life.
Though she tried for several minutes to abstain, she eventually clicked on Colton’s Facebook profile. His smiling, unassuming face appeared on her screen, and she felt actual physical pain, like someone had punched her in the stomach. Things had been so easy, so normal, before the breakup. Now she was lost. Worse, she was a lost, lonely freak with kinky unfilled desires.
Blinking to discourage the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes, she clicked over to the university dashboard, where people from outside the college frequently posted job listings. She’d already decided it would be a good idea to work a part-time job while she retook her literature class. She could use the money, and she could also use the excuse to leave her dorm room and not spend too much time in her own head.
She glossed over a few nannying and tutoring jobs that didn’t seem bad but were all located too far away for her tin can of a car to commute to every day. Ideally, she would find a job within biking distance or that she could bus to.
Despite her need to limit her job search radius, she couldn’t help but pause at one job located all the way in Beverly Hills that caught her eye:
Hobbyist exotic bird breeder looking for assistance in handfeeding recently hatched parrots of all types. Pay is $200/day plus room and board if required.
The bird breeder’s name was Hudson, and he supplied his telephone number in the listing.
Kayla hadn’t seen a job post like this before, and she was intrigued. It didn’t seem like it would be hard to feed baby parrots—certainly something she could figure out—plus it paid well and the man’s home was in Beverly Hills. How exciting would it be to see how the wealthy one percent lived? Of course, her car would have trouble making that commute, but perhaps there would be a bus route.
Without analyzing it further, Kayla picked up her cell phone and punched in Hudson’s digits. As the phone trilled, she tried to imagine what kind of man bred exotic birds. It sounded very eccentric, like something a millionaire might do for fun in between hosting lavish dinner parties.
“Hello,” a deep voice answered briskly, as though in a hurry.
Perhaps I interrupted him in the middle of bird-feeding, she thought, glancing at the clock as though learning the time might clue her in on when bird-feeding took place, when she didn’t have the first clue.
“Hi,” she responded in an overly exuberant squeak. “My name is Kayla Smith, and I’m a college student. I noticed you posted a bulletin for an exotic bird-feeder.”
Exotic bird-feeder. Is that what her job title would be? She squashed a giggle. Somehow it sounded both glamorous and ridiculous at the same time.
“Are you interested?” he asked, still sounding as though he were rushed.
“Well, yes. I wouldn’t be calling otherwise,” she quipped cheerily, then winced. Sarcasm probably wasn’t the best way to go about getting a job. It was nerves that caused the sarcasm. Ever since she was a young girl, talking on the phone made her uncomfortable.
A brief silence followed, and Kayla wondered if Hudson might hang up on her. Instead, he responded in a slightly more relaxed tone. “Great. Want to stop by at four o’clock today and help with the feeding? We can decide then if you’re suited for the job.”
“I’d love to,” Kayla said, her pulse quickening. She hadn’t expected for the job interview to take place on the very same day. He sure didn’t waste time.
“Excellent,” he replied. “Don’t be late. I have to leave for work at five.”
“I won’t be late, I’m very punctual,” she said, then mentally kicked herself. She was trying too hard. Besides which, that was a total lie. She was notoriously late for everything. But she certainly wouldn’t be late for this job interview. It was the most interesting thing to happen to her in months.
“Good girl,” he said, and then began spouting off his address without first checking to see if she had a pen handy.
Kayla frantically reached over to her nightstand to collect one, knocking over her glass of water as she did, and worked to memorize what he was saying in order to write it down as soon as she’d grabbed the needed tool. She scratched out the house number and street on her arm. She was about to ask him to repeat the number but then stopped herself, worried that he might think she was incompetent if she couldn’t write down an address correctly the first time it was said to her.
That’s silly, isn’t it? she thought. It would be perfectly reasonable to ask for him to repeat the number, but she didn’t want to. She realized her reticence had to do with him calling her a good girl, which had taken her by surprise. Strangely, she felt like she had to prove him right. Yes, I’m a very good girl, sir. I can write down an address the first time it’s given to me. No problem, sir.
She worked to push her inappropriate inner thoughts from her mind and cleared her throat. “What kind of work do you do, if you don’t mind my asking,” she asked, curious. “Seems unusual to go to work at five in the afternoon.”
“I’m a detective with the Beverly Hills police department. I’ll see you at four sharp, Kayla. Thank you for calling.”
“You’re welcome,” she said dumbly, and then heard static white noise. She set her phone aside and stared out the window at the tennis balls whizzing by. So Hudson was a cop… A cop who lived in Beverly Hills and bred exotic birds and said ‘good girl’ as part of normal conversation. She hadn’t even met him, and he was already the most interesting person she knew. Lately she was always fantasizing about cops—well, about men in positions of authority in general—and the fact that this cop had said ‘good girl’ to her on the phone was causing a flurry of submissive, girly feelings.
She did a Google search on his address. Street view showed his house, and she drew a sharp breath. It was quite large and expensive-looking, which she supposed wasn’t unusual since it was in Beverly Hills, but she wondered how he could afford a place like that on his cop salary. Perhaps breeding exotic birds was more lucrative than she would have guessed.
Of course, it could also mean that she’d written down the wrong address and she wasn’t even looking at the right house. “Damn it,” she moaned. The thought of having to call Hudson again and ask for his address was mortifying. She would just have to take her chances.
Kayla opened a browser and checked the bus a
nd train routes. Predictably, there was no simple route via the metro system to get to the Beverly Hills residence from her college. She would have to rely on her dying ‘98 Toyota Corolla that leaked a rainbow of fluids. She hoped it would make it—and on time.
Chapter Two
Hudson looked up from the book he was reading about endangered California condors and checked the clock. It was five minutes until four, so his potential new employee would be showing up very soon, he hoped. He’d specified that she wasn’t to be late.
It would take a minimum of twenty minutes to teach her how to feed the chicks and to observe whether she would take to the task, and it would take another twenty minutes to assess her character by asking various questions. He needed to hire someone he could trust, since she would have twenty-four-hour access to his home.
As a detective well-versed in interrogation, he felt confident that he could decide within the hour whether she was well-suited for the job—that is, if she showed up on time. He tapped the heel of his boot on the rug in the sitting room and leaned forward to look at the security camera’s screen. He was annoyed to see no car in sight, when Kayla should have been driving up right about then in order to make it past the gate and to the front of his house by four o’clock.
He set his book aside and stood to his feet, annoyed both with the girl who had promised him punctuality and with himself for not telling her to arrive by three-thirty instead. He should have accounted for the fact that nearly everyone in L.A. was ‘fashionably’ late due to traffic or a certain sense of entitlement that seemed to pervade the population. Most people weren’t sticklers like him, who’d had military precision drilled into him by his parents growing up.
It was five minutes past four when his cellphone rang. He saw that it was Kayla’s number and answered.
“Hello, Hudson?” a breathless voice exclaimed. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I think I’m at your gate. What do I do? How do I get in?”
He liked the way she said his name in a sweet southern drawl, and her panicked behavior caused Hudson’s annoyance to wane. Most people wouldn’t bother apologizing. Most people wouldn’t think five minutes past an agreed-upon time counted as arriving late. He glanced at the security screen and saw a young woman with long blonde hair staring with a puzzled expression at the intercom on the gate. Judging by the fact she’d called him on the phone instead of pressing the button on the intercom, it was clear she’d never encountered a security gate at a house. And where was her car? That was puzzling.
“First, take a deep breath,” he said gently, hoping he didn’t sound condescending. He felt like he needed to comfort her, since she seemed to be remarkably out of her element. “I’m going to open the gate. Follow the path up to the front door.”
He heard her obediently draw a deep breath as he flicked the lever to open the gate.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll see you in a jiffy,” she said.
He watched her on the camera as she plucked a compact mirror from her purse and examined her face. He was certain she had no idea he could see her, or else she probably wouldn’t have stuck her tongue out at herself. It struck him both as funny and a bit uncalled for. In his experience, women were far too hard on themselves when it came to looks.
His African gray parrot squawked loudly and mimicked him from across the room. “Follow the path up to the front door.”
“Yes, that’s right, Charlie,” he responded with amusement, realizing belatedly that he should have moved the bird to a different room for the interview. Besides being talkative to the point of annoying, Charlie also had a habit of repeating phrases Hudson had said during his last relationship with a woman who’d shared his kinky interests. Hudson didn’t need potential employees discovering his penchant for domestic discipline and spanking. That might put a damper on his hiring process.
“Behave yourself, and don’t embarrass me,” he admonished the bird as he walked to the front door.
“Don’t be naughty. Daddy’s going to spank you,” the parrot said in a near-perfect imitation of Hudson’s voice.
Hudson groaned. He really should have moved the parrot, but it was too late now. Kayla was already knocking on his door. He swung it open and found himself face-to-face with the girl he’d seen on the screen. “Hello,” he said with a smile, holding out his hand. “I’m Hudson. Nice to meet you. Come in.”
She took his hand and stumbled over his doorstep, not noticing it was raised slightly. “Oops! Nice to meet you too.” Her voice was still breathless, and a pink hue spread over her face.
“Maybe I should draw a line with yellow paint on that step,” he said jokingly, trying to alleviate her embarrassment for tripping.
She laughed and shook her head. “No, that would ruin your entrance. I love the stone pathway to your front door, and that fountain with the bird profiles etched into the rock… Wow. It’s lovely. In fact, your whole house is lovely.” She looked around with wide eyes, giving Hudson the chance to study her discreetly.
She wore faded jeans that he supposed were the latest fashion for college students. A cream-colored blouse with pearl buttons fell attractively over her shoulders down to her hips. The shirt fit her loosely and modestly, but the cut was short enough to give him a peek of her tanned midsection when she pivoted to peruse the house.
As he had noticed from the security camera, her hair was long and blonde. In person, he saw that it was parted down the middle and pinned on both sides by rhinestone barrettes that made her look less fashion-forward and more innocent than the typical women he ran into. Though attractive, she didn’t have the kind of glamorous looks he associated with L.A. girls. Her hair was a dirty-blonde color, not bleached, and she didn’t show any signs of having undergone plastic surgery or augmentation.
He was secretly pleased by this, not because he felt there was anything wrong with a woman who went the extra mile to try to improve her looks, but because he always felt more at ease with people who were not into the lifestyle he’d grown up around. He liked to distance himself from his youth as much as possible.
Hudson followed Kayla’s gaze up to the second-floor landing. His house’s entrance was grand, even for Beverly Hills, due to its immediate view of the sitting room, living area, and open spiral staircase up to the second floor. The hallways of the second floor were encased in intricately designed wrought iron with a hummingbird and rose pattern.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Hudson asked. “I think we should talk a bit and then I can show you the birds you’d be responsible for.”
“Oh, thank you. Something to drink would be great. It’s such a hot day. What do you have?”
“Everything,” he said, which was just about true. “What do you like?”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh, um…” Her gaze darted around the room. She seemed to be overwhelmed by the possibilities available, so he made a guess as to what she might be in the mood for.
“How about a Coke or a glass of Perrier?”
“Perfect, thank you,” she said, sounding relieved. “A Coke, please.”
He nodded. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back.”
When he returned, he found her sitting on his Chanel French sofa, a gift from his mother when he’d bought the house. He handed her the Coke and sat on the chair opposite her with his own Coke.
“So, Kayla, tell me a little about yourself and why you think you’re right for this position.”
She took a sip of her drink and cleared her throat. “Well, I’m a college student, as you already know, and I’m just looking to make some extra money over the summer. I’ll be taking a literature class for the next few months, which happens three times a week during the evenings, but that’s all I have planned. I’ve always liked animals—had lots of pets in Kentucky where I grew up—though I admit I’ve never fed baby birds before.”
Hudson leaned back in his chair. “That’s all right. It’s not too hard to learn, but these particular birds will require feeding four times per
day. I’m most concerned about availability and whether it’s something you’re interested in giving up that much of your life for. Even though it’s not a full-time job, as such, it requires a full-time commitment, which is why I’m offering a higher pay than one would typically get for three or so hours of work a day.”
She nodded agreeably, but Hudson caught a flicker of apprehension in her eyes after his explanation, so he asked, “Would that be a problem for you, having to cover so many feedings?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” she said. “It’s just, I don’t think I’d be able to drive here that many times in one day. My car… Well, it’s not in the best of shape.”
“No, it wouldn’t make sense to drive here four times a day even if your car was in great shape. I’d suggest you get here in the morning and leave in the evening after all the feedings are done, just like a regular job, or you could move here for the summer. That would be your choice.”
“I could live here?” She tilted her head.
“Yes. There’s a studio attached to the house. Very private, with a separate entrance, full kitchen, even a washer and dryer. I could set you up there.”
“That would be fantastic!” Kayla exclaimed, her eyes dancing with delight. She gulped down more of her Coke and set it on the coaster-clad table next to her. “It would be a big step up from my dorm room, I’m sure.”
He smiled, pleased by her exuberance. As long as she took to the feeding task well, he would hire her. He already liked her and could tell she was an honest, straightforward person without airs or devices. It helped that she was pleasant to look at, too, and he didn’t think he would be flattering himself too much by believing she felt the same about him. The girl blushed at practically everything he said.
