Good Girl (3 page)

Hunter grimaced as Selina looked back up
from the watercolors. “What? You don’t like it?”

Kali’s heart was beating faster, and her
palms were sweating. She didn’t know what to think or what to do. Why was she
so flustered by one joking word? He was just teasing her. The way teenagers
teased each other. So why did it bother her so much? She felt like she was
overreacting, and that made her feel even worse.

“Kali, I asked you, what’s wrong with
it?” Selina insisted.

Hunter’s blue eyes were pleading with
her now. He was half-turned away from Selina, so she couldn’t see him, but Kali
could. From his expression, Hunter knew she was upset, and he felt bad about
it. With his obvious remorse and those full, anxious lips, how could she hurt
him?

“It feels good,” Kali said. “I like it
because it’s different.”

Hunter gave her a grateful look. “I
designed it so your hips tilt forward slightly, like an exercise ball. It’s a
very comfortable position.”

Satisfied, Selina wandered on and soon
called Hunter over to the model of the sundial that was placed in the center of
the table. Kali stayed sitting on the bench, feeling flushed. She wanted Hunter
to come back and talk to her again, but then again, she was afraid of what he
might say.

He shouldn’t have teased her in front of
her boss. But she couldn’t stop thinking about his hands, and the way he moved.
The intent way he looked at her, as if he was searching inside of her. She had
never felt so confused in her
life.           

***

Hunter felt bad about ordering Kali to
sit. It served him right that she almost blew it for him by complaining about
the bench. He had never asked her if she wanted to play, which was the first
cardinal rule of kink. He had put her on the spot, but she’d gotten her own
back, that’s for sure.

He was so stupid. Why was he messing
with her like this? Self-destructive didn’t begin to describe how bad it was.
He was going to ruin the best thing that had come along in a very long time.
What if Kali told her boss what he’d done? If she told anyone, she sure as heck
wouldn’t say that it turned her on. It was exactly the kind of thing that got
bigger and uglier with the telling of it. They would think he was a sexist pig
and they wouldn’t hire him.

So here he was doing damage control.
That meant pleasing the boss. Selina Stern was the kind of woman who needed to
be stroked and admired. He was willing to do it because he knew his design
would win on its merits, all else being equal.

He wasn’t sure what type Kali was. At
first he thought she was the “new-to-NYC and on the man-hunt for a good
husband” type, but she hadn’t made any special effort to spruce up for their
meeting. She wasn’t wearing lipstick anymore, as if it had rubbed off during
the day and she hadn’t bothered to fix it. And with the sinking sun streaming
through the giant window, her hair looked more red than brown, a deep true
auburn. He could swear that sparkling fall of many shades of color didn’t come
from a bottle.

The fact that Kali could put up with
such a tyrant for a boss showed she had some inclination for submission inside
of her. But then again, there had been no spark of recognition each time he had
said those words to her. Only outrage and arousal. The best combination in the
world, as far as he was concerned.

Only, he really should ask her to play
first. He refused to go down the road that Selina took—getting his sadistic
kicks out of ordering people around who couldn’t say no. Those were the kind of
people who ended up being rude to wait staff at restaurants. Or worse, ignoring
a girl’s safeword.

It was only a few minutes later that
Selina announced, “I have to run or I’ll miss my flight. Thank you for showing
me your work, Hunter.”

“It’s been my pleasure.” His glance slid
from Selina to Kali to include her in his compliment.

Kali wasn’t looking his way. She hadn’t
said a word since she gave her opinion on the bench.

Hunter walked them downstairs. Most of
the live-in artists in the building were very young, and he didn’t want some
rude kid leaving a lasting impression on them that would hurt his chances. But
luckily no one was hanging out on the stairwell or in front of the building.

Hunter gave Selina’s hand a final shake,
which she managed to make last a few seconds longer than usual, before she
stepped into the limo car. Her last words for Kali were, “Write this up for me
so I can send out the memo on Monday.”

They both watched the car drive away.
Hunter had the feeling that Kali could hardly look at him. He felt a pang again
at the way he had played with her without asking first.

“Which way is it to the subway?” Kali
asked.

Hunter glanced at her high heels. “It’s
five blocks away. I think I should call you a car. It’ll only take a few
minutes to get here.”

She was looking down the block. “You
think so?”

He felt for his phone but he’d left it
upstairs. “I’ve got the number in my phone. I’ll be right back.”

Kali protested, “Really, don’t bother.”

He smiled in spite of himself. The
perfect submissive response. “Why don’t you come up, so you won’t have to wait
down here alone?”

“That’s okay. It’s a pretty evening.”
She looked up at the sky visible through the low buildings.

He was surprised. He couldn’t remember
the last time he had asked a girl up to his place and she refused. Not that
this was a date. But it felt sort of like it because he had played with her,
even if she didn’t know it.

He couldn’t do that again. He had to
keep it professional. So he went upstairs to get his phone. He called the car
company on the way back down and gave them his address, all the while wondering
how he could make it up to her without ruining his chance at winning the
competition for the plaza.

When he got outside, Kali was gone.

It was like a punch in the gut. He had
expected her to be there, had been thinking of what to say to her, how to
apologize for what he’d done without making things worse.

He ran up to the corner, but he couldn’t
see her in either direction. “
Crap!
”

It was like his vision narrowed. He had to
find her. What if she went in the wrong direction and crossed into the barrio?
It was only a few streets away. The women he usually dated could handle
themselves in his neighborhood, but he wasn’t sure about Kali. There was a
fresh-off-the-barn feel about her that worried him.

“Crap…,” he muttered through gritted
teeth.

He ran, first up the street and then
crossing over several streets. There were people getting home from work, some
walking and even more riding bikes. He ran all the way to the subway. At the
entrance, he didn’t see her. He felt like a tool, breathing heavily, but then
he saw a bunch of guys loitering just outside the stairwell. So he kept on
moving.

He ran down inside the subway and leaned
over the turnstile. Kali wasn’t on the platform. He didn’t see how she could
have beaten him there, but he had to check.

Back outside, the homeboys were looking
him over, pointing him out to each other.

What if Kali had gone in the other
direction, into the barrio towards the next subway station? It was about five
blocks away from his studio, but in the other direction.

He set off towards Flushing Ave at a
fast clip. It was his fault that she had gone off alone. He had made her feel
uncomfortable. A rank novice, and he had messed with her at her job. He
deserved to lose this gig. But most of all, he didn’t want Kali to get hurt or
scared because of he had been an asshole.

He had to find her.

Hunter was running across a street, when
out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kali. She was almost to the corner, and
couldn’t help seeing him. He skidded to a stop. In a few steps he returned to
her side.

“There you are.” He tried to say it
lightly but was too out of breath to pull it off. But he couldn’t stop smiling,
it was such a relief.

Kali was surprised. “Did you run after
me? Seriously? You thought I couldn’t walk to the subway by myself?”

“I called a car for you.”

“I only live a few stops away. In
Williamsburg.” She stepped forward. “And the entrance is right there.”

Hunter could see the homeboys still
hanging out in front of the subway. “Let’s go.” He made sure he was walking on
the inside, between her and where the guys were standing.

She noticed the group of young men at
the same time. Or maybe it was the sudden serious tone in his voice. She
stopped protesting and warily went along with him.

Hunter tried to take it easy, but the
guys had just seen him run up in some kind of desperate funk looking for
someone. And now here he was walking with a pretty girl who was obviously
keeping her distance from him.

Several of them started hooting at them.
“Yo, you have a fight, man?” “I’ll take her off your hands.” “Yeah, you know
that
…”

Hunter could feel himself swelling up in
the chest, ready to bash heads if any of them took a step towards Kali. He
glared at them and flexed his muscles a bit, letting the warning in his eyes
speak for him.

It was like throwing gas on the flames.

The comments got louder as they pushed
past them at the entrance. Kali moved closer to Hunter as they went down the
steps.

The homeboys followed them down inside
the station, but they paused on the steps just out of sight of the bored MTA
employee sitting in the bullet-proof glass booth reading the
NY Post
.

Hunter hesitated only a moment, then
swiped his card through the slot so Kali could go through the turnstile. He
swiped again and followed after her, but stopped her from going further up the
platform. They could still see the MTA booth from where they stood.

The gang didn’t follow them through the
turnstile. They didn’t want to pay another two bucks each to get closer when
they could taunt him from the stairs. They also couldn’t come closer into the
narrow lobby or the MTA employee would order them to leave.

Under the eyes of the homeboys who
continued to make comments, Kali turned away to look out at the platform.

Hunter felt like he’d won. They were
stymied and he was standing on the platform with Kali. “That takes care of
that.”

“Thank you for finding me.” Her eyes met
his frankly for the first time since he had ordered her to sit down on his
bench. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t safe.”

He kept watch on the gang on the stairs.
She had her back to them, trusting him to look out for her.

“They’re just assholes with nothing
better to do,” Hunter said.

The gang may not have caught the words,
but his attitude was clear. Their jeering picked up. Even the MTA employee
looked up from his
Post
for a second.

Kali moved even closer to him. “There’s
a train coming.”

Her hair was blowing in the incoming
breeze as a subway rushed down the tunnel towards them. “Good, it’s almost
over.”

“You can’t go back out there.” She put
her hand on his arm, looking up at him. “You don’t know what they’ll do.”

He stared at the gang openly now, as if
judging them. “They’re all bark, no bite.”

“Don’t be like that,” she insisted.
“Come with me, even if it’s only to the next station.”

He thought he had seen a couple of the
guys around before. This was his neighborhood, his subway station. He wasn’t
going to be run off by a pack of goons. Now he had to defend his right to be
here, and that’s not what he wanted. There was always a cost to not fitting in.
But he had never fit in. He had always been the new kid, moving around as his
dad changed trucking jobs. He knew how to watch what was going on around him
and react the right way, so he wasn’t noticed.

So how did this situation get so out of
hand? There was Kali, her eyes fastened on him. His deep down spinal reflex was
to jump those mother fuckers and see how many he could take down, scaring off
the others while doing it.

He wiped his hand across his face.
What
is wrong with me?

With a squeal of brakes, the subway
train pulled in. Hunter was already walking forward with Kali, still watching
them so he knew it almost before they did. Several of them leaped forward,
going for the turnstiles.

“They’re jumping,” he told Kali,
hustling her inside the subway car and down to the end.

The conductor tried to close the doors
when he saw several guys come flying over the turnstiles, but the doors had to
open all the way to close again, and three of them managed to wiggle into their
car.

“Oh, no…” Kali breathed.

Hunter put his arm around her and could
feel she was trembling. With a lurch, the car started. “It’s okay,” he said.
“Come on.”

The guys were laughing at their success
at the back end, while Hunter and Kali passed through the front door onto the
rocking platform outside the car. Kali looked through the window behind them.
“They’re coming after us.”