Good Girl (20 page)

Silence hung in the air, and Kali was
frozen, not quite looking at either of them.

Finally, Jenny said, “Don’t you have a backup
plan, Hunter? Most artists can teach if their career falters. But you can’t do
that without a degree.”

“I’m an artist. I learned in the real
world, and I’ll always be working with sculpture and casting metal. I’m sure
I’ll have more than enough projects and ideas to fill a lifetime.”

“But you rely on patrons to survive, as
all artists do. If that dries up, you’ll starve. Or you’ll lose your home.
That’s hard, especially if you have children.” Jenny looked at him harder. “Are
you planning to have a family?”

“I don’t plan out everything like that.”
Like apparently you do
, he wanted to add.

“But you have to make plans if you have
kids. It’s too much responsibility to go into it lightly and just hope that
things work out.”

It was offensive on so many levels, but
it was serving his goal to figure out what was at the heart of Kali. So he went
ahead and named what was going on. “It sounds like you think I’m not good
enough for your daughter.”

“She didn’t say that,” Kali put in
quickly.

Jenny didn’t agree, which was even more
telling. “My first responsibility is to watch out for my daughter. I want to be
sure she’s taken care of. I don’t want her to have to support her husband
and
her child. Like I did.”

It rang in the air, her defiant defense
of the judgment she had laid down against him.

Unfortunately, at this most interesting
turn, Kali’s dad arrived home and interrupted everything. He called out a big
“hallo!” from the kitchen and Kali ran in to hug him with Hunter and Jenny
following in awkward silence.

After that, Danny Jones took the lead,
opening up some wine for them and telling them about the rehearsal he had just
gotten back from. He composed synthesizer music and worked with several
different groups. One was a wedding band that he dismissed with a shrug. Hunter
heard about his interests in music, wood-working, performing arts and community
organizing.

Because of their rocky start, Hunter
didn’t talk much to Jenny, but she participated in their conversation, adding
things from the campus point of view when it came to village planning or the
plight of the local theater which had to compete with the much better-funded
theater arts program at the college.

Kali seemed happy again, now that the
danger zone was in the rear-view mirror. But Hunter saw the threads of
discontent crop up from time to time. Danny said at one point that he had tried
and failed to create a children’s theater in the area, while Jenny sighed over
the bills they still had to pay for it. Danny’s plan for transforming a vacant
triangle of land into a bandstand area had also recently failed, and Jenny
pointed out that it became a dog park despite his active campaigning. He taught
music lessons to some very young pupils, but according to Jenny’s dismissive
expression, that clearly wasn’t worth much. When Danny announced he’d been
asked to write a review of the art opening tomorrow for the local free weekly
paper on spec, Kali was the one who congratulated him not Jenny.

The one thing Jenny and Danny agreed on
was coddling Kali. The love flowed freely between them and their daughter, with
both parents competing for her attention. Kali didn’t have to do anything but
be their focus. She absorbed it all with her sweet, placating nature, making
peace between them just by existing.

It was so enlightening.

***

Hunter was grateful that Kali’s parents
weren’t so straight-laced that they made them sleep apart at night. He couldn’t
keep his hands off her, though her parents were sleeping across the hall from
them. Kali was inhibited for the first time, unable to really let go as she
worried about creaky springs and loud breathing. She didn’t orgasm until he
went down on her, and then she stifled her own sounds by smashing the pillow
against her face. It was hot making her orgasm in spite of her walls, pushing
her resistance in a new way.

The next day she showed him around her
tiny world. She was one of the lucky ones. Many of the villagers she introduced
Hunter to had never left the county for any length of time. The campus had just
released the students, so there weren’t many people around. Those he saw were
either working on the grounds or were privileged kids, sleek and handsome,
dawdling on campus after the end of the semester. They lived in actual mansions
converted into sororities and fraternities with large Greek letters over the
doorways, attending classes in the high-tech labs and luxurious old-world
buildings.

It was almost nauseating. But it hadn’t
ruined Kali, so there had to be something going for it.

Hunter gestured to a group sitting on
the edge of a fountain looking like a catalogue for L.L. Bean. “Your mom would
have been glad to have you marry one of those guys. Then you wouldn’t have to
worry about money.”

Kali raised a hand as if to ward off the
suggestion. “Guys like that only want one thing from a townie. Especially when
they’re in college.”

“But you were one of them. You went to
school with them.”

“I was a charity pupil. There’s no way I
could have done it without my mom’s discount, and even then I had to get a
scholarship to help pay for it. I never really fit in.”

“Caught between two worlds.”

“True. Once I started going to school
here, some of my old friends dropped me. Maybe it was my fault, too. I was
doing new things, and was busy on campus instead of hanging out with them.”

“That probably made it easier for you to
leave town.”

She looked surprised. “Maybe. I
sometimes wonder why my old friends stay here when there’s not much opportunity
for improving their lives.”

“It’s because they’re comfortable here.”

She nodded. “Comfort vs. opportunity. It
is a problem.”

A few people they bumped into in the
village mentioned getting together at the local dive that night—the guy at the
bakery and a tired-looking woman with two toddlers they met on the street. But
Kali begged off, citing her dad’s friend’s art opening in one of the municipal
buildings. Her old friends looked Hunter over, wide-eyed, like a movie star had
suddenly fallen into town and they weren’t quite sure what to say at first, and
then said too much as Kali was trying to get away.

Jenny made dinner for them that night
before the opening. She was back to being politely distant with Hunter, as if
biding her time.

On the other hand, Danny had embraced
him as a fellow artist with no questions asked. Literally. He had yet to ask
Hunter anything. He had an astonishing capacity for self-absorption. He seemed
much more interested in showing off to Hunter than finding out what kind of man
his daughter had brought home.

At the art opening, Danny introduced
Hunter around to his friends and the local civil servants. All of them knew
Danny Jones. Jenny was also at her best, shining in the reflected light of her
husband. Whereas Danny was loud and exuberant, Jenny had conversations of
substance and made her mark in a quieter, more effective way.

Hunter lost track of Kali at one point,
and finally saw her cornered by her mom near the bathrooms. Jenny spoke in low,
urgent tones. He quickly realized she was talking to Kali about him, using the
opportunity of the art opening to get her daughter alone. Kali looked unhappy.
He knew what Jenny was saying even though he couldn’t hear her: “He’ll never be
able to take care of you, you can’t trust him, he’s an irresponsible artist….”
And most of all: “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

And Kali said hardly a word, just
shaking her head from time to time, or reluctantly nodding agreement.

It sent a cold shiver down his spine.
Like he was seeing his death warrant. He was going to have to deal with this
head-on, or he was going to lose her.

Later that night as Kali sat
cross-legged on her bed watching him get undressed, he said, “Your mother was
talking to you about me tonight. What did she say?”

Kali looked embarrassed. “I know she
wasn’t very tactful last night.”

“I don’t care about that. I want you to be
honest with me. We can’t get anywhere if we keep secrets from each other.”

She took a deep breath. “She says I’m
just repeating a pattern from my own childhood, choosing a man like my dad.”

“An artist?”

“Yes, that. And what it brings with it.
Lack of stability. Having to be the responsible one.”

He didn’t smile, though he wanted to.
“Tell me, Kali, who has the power in your parent’s relationship? Which one is
in control?”

“I guess my dad is. He does exactly what
he wants. My mom had to work to support all of us.”

“It’s true that your dad has absolute
freedom outside the house. But Jenny Jones rules this family, make no mistake
about that.”

Kali shook her head, her brow furrowed.
“You think she likes it that he doesn’t show up when he says he will? That he’s
always off doing his own thing?”

“That what he bargained for. Everything
else belongs to your mom. She chose this house, and I’m betting everything in
it from the rugs to the food in the fridge. And she controls the money. Look at
her car! Nearly new while your dad drives a shitty old minivan with duct tape
on the bumper.”

“She earned the money herself. She
should have a nice car.”

“Think about it: since we’ve been here
she’s told us when to eat, what to eat, when to leave, when to come home, when
to sleep...”

Kali considered that for a few moments.
“I never thought of it that way.”

“The only time your dad is free is when
he’s outside this house and away from her. No wonder he stays away so much. No
wonder
you
moved away.”

“I wasn’t trying to get away from my
mom. We have a great relationship.”

“Yes, as long as you do what she wants.
I bet she hated it when you left for the city. She lost control over you. But
you probably wanted to leave for a long time before that.”

Her face suddenly turned to him. “How
did you know that? I wanted to go away to college to Florida or California,
someplace warm.”

“Someplace thousands of miles away from
Jenny Jones.”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s blasphemous, isn’t it? But I can tell
you and your mom talk over your dad’s failings. Seriously, I bet he was no
different when Jenny met him. She
chose
him because of who he is. She
knew she could have her own way with him, even if it meant she wasn’t getting a
real partner.” He smiled at her. “You want a real partner, don’t you, Kali?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you have to start from a place of
equality. That’s what we’re doing. We’re on a journey together to explore each
other and see if we can commit to each other in the long term. I’d rather make
the process the focus rather than the end result. Because otherwise you end up
bargaining away important things in order to get what you think you need. You
can take care of yourself, Kali. You’re already taking care of yourself. Your
mom can, too. It looks like she did really well for herself here, and she chose
a man who accommodates her in every way when he’s around. It’s not a bad
bargain. But I hope you want more.”

Chapter 13

Kali was shaken to her core. In the
space of twenty-four hours, Hunter had managed to make her question everything
she thought she knew about her family.

The next morning, she kept glimpsing her
mom and dad through Hunter’s eyes. With her mom in the kitchen, her dad didn’t
make pancakes with Kali like he usually did when the two of them were alone. He
even changed his shirt at her mom’s request, and Kali remembered the time her
mom threw away a pair of pants her dad had bought because she didn’t like the
color. Everything he wore was purchased by her mom, including his shoes. Her
mom had also bought all of Kali’s clothes in joint shopping sessions, with Kali
deferring to her advice. She wondered how different her chaste, drab wardrobe
would look if she had been allowed to experiment with colors and styles like
her friends had done.

At this point, Kali wasn’t sure she
would know how to start.

Maybe Hunter was right and her mom had
chosen her dad with her eyes wide open. When her mom made a snide remark about
her dad having to go someplace right after breakfast, it was suddenly clear she
was doing it to get Kali on her side. Kali had been caught in a tug of war
between her parents’ affection for as long as she could remember, but she had
never wanted to look at it in that light.

More than anything, she realized Hunter
was right as she told her mom good-bye in the kitchen, while Hunter was putting
their bags in the car. She had avoided being alone with her mom until the last
minute.

Without any warning, her mom said, “You
have to see that it’s impossible for you to be serious about him, Kali.”

“I don’t think so, Mom.”

Her mom’s lips compressed into a thin
line. “I don’t want you to have to struggle like I did.”

“I won’t. I can take care of myself,”
she said, echoing Hunter.

“But it’s not fair for you to have to
take care of someone else, too. You should find someone who’s able to support
you, instead of someone who wants to live off you.”

That bothered Kali. “You’ve been happy
with Dad. You must get something out of it or you would have kicked him out a
long time ago.”

“He’s a good father. And a good husband.
When he’s around. But he’s never been able to contribute to our household in a
meaningful way.”

“Hunter isn’t like that. He’s supported
himself and worked to bring money in for his family since he was a teenager. He
takes care of his parents, not the other way around like most of the people I
know who are living off the monthly check from daddy.”

“There’s no stability in it, Kali.”

Kali wanted to shake off her mom’s fears
that threatened to smother her. “I hate that word! What’s stable in this world?
Everything’s changing. What about the administrators from the college you were
talking about last night who were laid off? They were making good plans, safe
in a steady job, but life came along and smacked them around. Maybe it’s good
to choose someone who can roll with the punches and figure out how to make
things work, rather than someone who coasts along thinking they’re safe because
they get a paycheck every week.”

As Kali turned away, Hunter was standing
in the doorway with a big grin on his face. He had been tense all weekend, not
like his usual self. She liked seeing him happy again, and even better because
she had made him feel that way.

Her mom had nothing more to say, not in
front of Hunter. She turned very cold and hardly responded to Kali’s hug
good-bye. Kali felt abandoned by the way her mom was acting. Her mom’s
disapproving silence was always worse than any arguments.

But this time Kali was able to wave
goodbye and leave it behind. She wouldn’t have to come home and face a blank
wall when she tried to talk to her mom. It was a relief, because she didn’t
have to make things right. She knew from past experience that the only way to
make it right was to do what her mom said. But Kali wasn’t going to dump her
super-sexy lover just because her mom told her to.

Kali felt like she was casting off the
ropes and sailing into the unknown.
Here there be dragons….

***

Kali was on edge for the several hour
train trip back to the city with Hunter. He didn’t seem to mind the long
periods of silence. He worked on his laptop, then stretched out his long legs
and watched the lush countryside pass by until they abruptly came to the far
flung outlines of the city.

Kali had hoped the sight of the
clustered skyscrapers in the distance would lift her spirits, as it always did.
But this time she had the uncomfortable feeling that she had dragged Jefferson
and its baggage back to the city with her.

She was so preoccupied that she didn’t
really consider what was happening until Hunter had accompanied her all the way
from Penn Station to her apartment. Standing in the living room facing him,
feeling oddly displaced, she still didn’t know what to say or do.

“Would you like me to go?” Hunter asked
gently.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know
what I want right now.”

“It’s natural. You’re unsettled because
you’re defying your mom. I bet she hated it when you moved to the city.”

“Yes, she did,” Kali admitted. “She
really pushed those windmill projects that have gone up around the county and
she still keeps trying to get me involved.”

“You never thought about her being so
controlling?”

“It’s just the way it is. I always
thought we were at my dad’s whim. But you’re right—my mom decides everything.
My dad never complains about it. I guess he doesn’t mind.”

“And you ignored it until now.”

She sighed. “Now all I can do is think
about it.”

Hunter put a reassuring hand on her
shoulder. “You are tense. Here, let me rub your back.”

He stepped behind her and began expertly
rubbing her back between her shoulder blades, running his hands down and
around, then back up to the top of her shoulders, slowly pressing deeper to
release the tension.

“Ahh…,” she breathed.

He stroked her from the back of her
head, down her neck, down either side of her spine. He gently gripped her
shoulders and rotated them to loosen her up. It felt wonderful.

But all Kali could think about was how
her dad gave her mom back rubs. Jenny complained that sitting at a desk all day
was hard on her back. Danny was good at giving a back rub, and he did it for
Kali and for his friends, too, from time to time. She should be enjoying this.

“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked.

“Nothing. It feels great.”

“You just sighed.” He took hold of her
shoulders, showing her how stiff she was. “You’re fighting me every inch of the
way. What’s going on?”

“I keep thinking about my dad. He always
gives my mom backrubs. I’ve never seen her do it for him. Never. Not even
once.”

“They each bring certain things to the
relationship. They found a way to get what they need. But the better way to do
it is to talk it out rather than struggle passive-aggressively to get what you
want.”

“That makes sense,” she said absently.

He stopped and turned her to face him.
“I think you’re upset because you’ve realized how much your mom used her
complaints about your dad to control you. She was able to make sure you did
what she wanted because she was already so imposed on by him. She made you a mini-adult
to help her, but I think it was mainly to keep you under her thumb.”

Kali put her hands to her face. “It’s
too awful! I had a wonderful childhood, and a really good relationship with my
parents. I hate seeing there were a lot of subconscious motives playing out the
whole time.”

“The underbelly is there whether we look
at it or not. You’re one of the lucky ones. Your family is functional,
affectionate and your parents think the world of you. You weren’t abused or
victimized—right? You’ve never said anything about that.”

She shook her head. “No, never anything
like that. A handsy guy on a date once, that’s it.”

“No matter how healthy a relationship
people have, there are power dynamics at play. It’s a constant push-pull. We
manipulate people into giving us what we need. Some do it deliberately, some
unconsciously. It’s always happening, so it makes sense to watch the
undercurrents at work.”

Kali nodded, feeling lost. She didn’t
know what to think.

Hunter stroked her cheek. “I hate to see
you so sad. It’s not your fault, you know. I see a lot of girls like you,
perfectionists who always step up to get the job done. They’re usually
submissive.”

“Really?”

“Really. There are legions of sub
volunteers who run the kinky groups, men and women, both. I guess it makes
sense since they’re the ones who are really in control. They’re the ones with
the escape hatch to end the scene, even though the tops are directing the
action.”

“Do you ever give up control?” she
asked.

His lips compressed. “Not really. I’ve
bottomed, like with the hook pull, but it’s completely on my own terms. I’m not
as good at letting go like you are. But I’m feeling it more with you than I
ever have. It’s a release to let go, to stop your mind from going round and
round. To just feel and focus entirely on the moment. It’s cathartic,
transformative.”

“Like sex,” she agreed.

“The way
you
have sex, yes. You
seem to lose yourself when you get passionate. That’s why I think you’d like it
if you tried something like spanking.”

The word hung in the air.

Kali crossed her arms over herself. “I
don’t want to get hurt.”

“I won’t hurt you. I promise. And you
can say stop any time, remember? You can just tell me if it isn’t working for
you. I want it to feel good.”

She used to be so sure that she wouldn’t
like it, that it couldn’t possibly feel good, that it was hard to reconsider.
But he kept blowing up her preconceived notions about so many things,
especially when it came to hot sex, that she felt a shiver of longing deep
inside. She liked jumping into the unknown with him, relying on him to carry
them through. She liked how much he wanted to make her feel good…

Hunter drew her closer, dropping one
hand down to her butt, squeezing one cheek. “You’ll like it. I know you will.”
His voice lowered. “You know you’re curious.”

She met his intensely blue eyes, caught
fast as always. The game was on. She could tell it by the tone of his voice.
She wanted to give him this, she wanted to please him. Part of her was running
away from it because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it right. That
she’d disappoint him by ending it abruptly because she couldn’t handle it. She
was no Minx. She had no illusions about her own wimpitude.

But he was right, she was curious what
all the fuss was about.

“All right,” she agreed.

He kissed her, one hand holding her
close and the other on her butt cheek, squeezing like a promise of more to
come. She liked it. Then he put his other hand on her butt, pulling her into
him, pressing her against his hardening cock, as he squeezed and rubbed her
behind. She held onto his neck and shoulders, leaning back as he kissed her.

With almost a growl, he picked her up
and lifted her over his shoulder. She let out a little shriek from the sudden
movement, finding herself hanging upside down. He still had a hand on her butt,
steadying her over his shoulder, his other arm holding her legs together. He
carried her into the bedroom and threw her onto the bed.

She let out another shriek, flying
backwards for a second. It got her heart racing and she already felt flushed
and turned on from his kisses. It seemed like he wanted to devour her, to take
every part of her. Like there was no way she could resist him.

Then he was leaning over her, pressing
her into the bed, holding her down by his size and weight. He was letting her
feel his control. So she would know that none of her struggles would be able to
stop him unless he chose to stop.

It was a little frightening. He said she
could stop any time. But really, there was nothing she could do if he decided
to keep going.

Maybe she was twisted, but the fear
turned her on even more. It was every awful bodice-ripper that ever
existed—Abduction! Forced sex! Everlasting love!

Hunter took hold of her chin with one hand,
bringing her abruptly to the present. “You’re still thinking too much.”

He rolled off her, lying down next to
her, facing her. Putting his arm under her back, he scooped her with him as he
sat up on the edge of the bed, holding her to his chest. Her head was nestled
against his bicep, and her legs curled behind him on the bed. He was rubbing
her butt, with her hip braced on his thigh.

A firm smack on her ass surprised her.
It wasn’t the classic over-the-knee spanking position, which she had dreaded so
much. Her mom had never spanked her as a child. It would have humiliated them
both! The worst punishment she got was the silent treatment. And her dad, he
never punished her for anything.