“You can call him Ben.”
“Right. There’s something about him, the way he moves, the way he was holding you and pounding you from behind that was, like, incredibly hot.”
Kimani blushed. “Then what did you and Miguel do?”
“We sat down and decided to wait for you to be done. We talked a lot.”
“Miguel seems like a really nice guy.”
“He is. There were a few times in the Dungeon Room when I could tell he was getting turned on and probably would’ve been open to doing something, but he didn’t say anything. It was like he knew I wasn’t ready, even though I never told anyone why I haven’t played in a while.”
“That’s cool.”
“He said we was planning to go to The Lair next Friday. I told him I might go then, too, depending on my work schedule.”
Kimani was able to turn the conversation toward the topic of Miguel, which Marissa seemed happy to talk about, and which used up the rest of the ride so there was no time to go back to talking about Ben. Once inside their home, Kimani professed to being really tired.
“I’ll bet you’re tired,” Marissa teased. “Maybe we should go back to The Lair together next Friday. Maybe your guy—I mean, Ben—will invite us up to the Upper Balcony again.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I never hear from him again,” Kimani said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I think he just needed to get his money’s worth, so to speak.”
“So he’s like a use-’em-then-leave-’em kind of guy?”
“I don’t think he’s relationship material.” But even as she said it, she wondered how true that was. She had been too quick to judge him before. “And even if he was, he wouldn’t be looking for a relationship with me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Well, good thing you don’t need to be in a relationship to enjoy The Lair!”
Kimani smiled, briefly entertaining the idea that she and Ben could be BDSM partners. However, given the feelings she already had for Ben, keeping things to just sex would be easier said than done.
THOUGH RUNNING LATE, Kimani headed to the Tribune offices in relatively high spirits. She had met with Gordon and pitched her idea to do an event in East Oakland, and he had agreed to it. She could hardly wait to get started on organizing some three-on-three games to make the event more fun. It would take a lot of work to pull it off in just two weeks’ t
ime, but she was excited.
At her request, she and Gordon had met at a tea shop, away his from campaign headquarters so that she wouldn’t run into Ben. A part of her hoped she would never see him again. Given how raw and roughed up he had left her body, she wondered how she had even made it home. Thirty-six hours later, she was still faintly sore between the legs.
She wondered what he had intended to say to her just before she’d exited the Silk Room, and she wished she had stayed a minute longer to find out, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been that important or he would have found a way to contact her. He knew she worked for the Tribune, but when she went to her desk, she saw that she had no new voicemails.
She went over to Sam’s office to talk about the possibility of Robin covering the event she was organizing for Gordon.
“We can cover it, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to print it,” he replied with a heavy sigh.
She did a double take. “Why not?”
Sam sighed again. “I just got a call from the lawyer representing the new owner. They’re shutting us down, effective immediately.”
“What?! Why?”
“He didn’t say. We’re going to get paid as if the paper was still up and running, but there won’t be a newspaper for tomorrow.”
She took a seat in front of Sam’s desk as she tried to process the information. “This doesn’t make much sense. What’s the urgency, especially if they’re keeping us on payroll?”