The Hunt

by Alice Ward

  She wiggled against me, the minx, and I grew harder.

  “You know you can’t leave me this way,” I teased.

  She gave me a sly look and sank down to her knees. She unzipped my pants and removed my cock, teasing me with a long, slow lick of her tongue. I was thrilled by her warm mouth and all the incredible sensations she ignited in me. She wasn’t an expert lover, but an intuitive one. She could sense my feelings from my reactions and was able to send me through the roof.

  She wrapped her hand around me and sucked, pumping me until I was about to come. With only a few precious minutes to spare, I lifted her up until her mouth was on mine. I slid my hand down her beautiful body to meet with her wet center. She was ready, and I moved her panties aside and took the plunge as we stood in her kitchen, pressed against the table.

  I was so excited and time pressured, I forgot the condom. Damn, it felt good, but I quickly pulled out and rolled a new one on. She screamed as she orgasmed and I clung to her, following only moments later.

  God, I was crazy about this woman. And from the look in her eyes, she was crazy about me.

  When we were done, there was a knock at the door. Robert had arrived. We quickly straightened ourselves out and tried not to look like two people who’d just fucked in the kitchen. She and I had never done that, just went crazy on each other for a quickie. Our lovemaking had been sensual, slow, in the bedroom with lots of showers and sweet smelling lotions and oils. Never down and dirty on the kitchen table. It felt incredible to be fucking the woman you care for.

  “Thanks, that was fun,” I said into her ear. “I won’t be able to enjoy anything this week, you can be sure.”

  “Me either.” Her eyes cast downward, the sadness creeping in.

  I kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, and finally her mouth. “I’ll call you when I get to New York. You start looking at cars you like, and I’ll do research on my end,” I said as I grabbed my bags and headed for the door.

  She planted her fists on her hips. “You’re not buying me a car. I’m not budging on that.”

  “We’ll see.” What she didn’t remember was that I did this for a living. I simple pestered people until they gave in to shut me up.

  Holding Caitlyn’s hand, I headed to the car, Robert running ahead to open the door. “Good morning, Mr. Preston. Sorry to bother you, but we need to hurry and get you back to New York ASAP. If we go now, I can rush through traffic.”

  “What’s going on?” God, I wasn’t ready to face work just yet.

  “Apparently the office has been trying to reach you. They want you to attend a ten o’clock meeting. I’ll conference you in from the car if we don’t make it by then, but they want you in person as soon as you can get there, so that’ll be our first stop.”

  I had turned off my phone last night for just this reason. “What movie?”

  I’d worked from Caitlyn’s kitchen every day while she went to art class. I thought all the fires were out, so I didn’t understand the reason for any crisis. Maybe my staff just needed a little practice in holding down the fort.

  “It’s the final casting for ‘Gamoroa Man.’”

  “Shit. Okay, let’s hustle.” I turned to Caitlyn. “Sorry for the shitty goodbye. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  I gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, and that was it. As we drove off, I hoped she would be okay and that she could manage without me. No, I realized. What really worried me was if I could manage without her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Caitlyn

  It was hard to see him go.

  As I walked back into the empty house, a rush of sadness threatened to overwhelm me. It smelled like him, and there were lingering scents and memories of him all over the house. Gran was there too. I hadn’t been in her room since she died, but knew the hospice team had removed all of her medical stuff. But she was still there. Her scent was in there as well. My nose was experiencing all these smells that were sending my emotions all over the place. Missing Gran here, wanting KP there. I decided the best thing to do was to look to the future and make a grand attempt at avoiding everything.

  A party.

  Yes. A get-together with friends was exactly the balm I needed right now.

  I’d already quit the restaurant, and would soon resign from the art center too. That added to my feelings of sadness, but I wanted to focus my attention on my school work. Since I’d been wanting this for so long, I planned to dedicate all my effort to becoming a better artist. I wasn’t exactly sure how my art would ever influence humanity, but I was sure I’d figure it all out.

  I decided to go to the center and give them my resignation in person. I wanted to be with the kids and enjoy spending time with them before starting school the following month. As hard as it was, it was the best way to get my mind off stuff and move forward with my life.

  An hour later, I told the director about my acceptance to Parson’s. He was thrilled for me, but also sad. As we planned for an end date for my last classes, I told him about an idea that had been brewing in my mind.

  I wanted to use the kids’ art to help inspire public awareness for some of the issues they faced. Having a voice and educating the world to reality was something these kids needed. My idea was to create an animated series based on characters the kids and I created, but I wanted the main character to have some kind of mental illness. MI kids had it worse than most. I would draw the main characters for the story but would invite guest artists to draw guest characters who would only be in the series for an episode or two.

  When I mentioned the idea to my students, they loved the concept and were eager to give their input. We decided that depression was the mental illness our lead character should have because most teens and many adults struggled with bouts of it. It was a good window to work through as I too struggled to fight off the clinging arms of depression. Since most of my students were girls, we went with Mathilda and drew her as a gorgeous woman of color. She had to be hot, the kids said, so that people would listen to her. That made me sad. People should listen to women who weren’t hot, but we had to start somewhere. We couldn’t tackle the whole world at one time.

  I loved what we came up with, and I worked on it day and night. It kept my mind off losing Gran and missing KP. Although I had to admit, it wasn’t that hard to miss KP. While his physical body wasn’t beside me at all times, he sure was. He called me almost every hour on the first day and nearly every two hours on the second. I finally had to put my foot down and suggest twice a day was plenty of time to talk to one another.

  There was no way I would have believed that KP, the creep from the restaurant, would end up being a man who called me every minute, trying to tell me he loved me in the cutest, dumbest ways.

  Did you eat this morning? Um, yep, I’m not on any weird fasting diet.

  Did you tell Parsons you want a single dorm room? Nope, just gonna take what they give me. That burned him up hard, so I got that question every day. The answer was still no. It wasn’t like I was going to let him on campus anyway.

  I could see it now… Oh, hey, Caity. Your famous billionaire producer boyfriend is here in the hallway. Do you want us to buzz him in?

  Nope, didn’t need that in my life. I’d be just your average, everyday art student without a famous boyfriend, thank you very much.

  “But you do have a famous boyfriend,” was always his gripe. Whatever. I wasn’t ready to deal with it.

  Honestly, the whole concept scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t believe that we’d even come this far. He was the guy I swore I’d never sleep with, and here we were mapping out our lives together. Besides, he could have been in New York screwing every woman he knew. I didn’t really have a way to tell, except for all the phone calls — it would be hard to squeeze a liaison in between those. So I decided to do as Gran had instructed and follow my heart.

  I looked at the unopened letter that Gran had given Athena. It sat on the mantel just living its little unopened life. I wasn�
��t ready. I couldn’t face her death. It was better for me to think she was on vacation than gone, so I left it there unread, waiting for a day when I could finally swallow the truth.

  Planning the party was fun. Tammy and I did the menu, and Ricky was in charge of the theme and decorations. We decided to go with a graffiti theme and slam poetry, so we painted paper cups and plates and wrote slam verses on them. I wanted the verses to be inspirational but cutting-edge.

  It was so much fun getting ready for the party, which was totally my thing. It would also give me a chance to connect with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. I’d invited coworkers from the art center and friends from my artist collective and the gallery. I wanted this to be a blowout so I invited everyone. The last person I invited was KP.

  “Hey, are you busy?”

  “I’m never too busy for you, love, what’s up?” He sounded busy, so I wanted to make this fast.

  “I’m having a ‘yay, I got into art school’ party at the house this Saturday after we get back from seeing Wenton. I know it’s last minute, and Saturday is our night, but with school starting for everyone in the next few weeks, this was the best weekend for it. So, two things… will you come and are you mad?” I just threw it out there and waited for whatever he was going to throw back at me.

  I’d had to try and help him get a handle on “let’s do everything my way” tendencies because they got on my nerves at times.

  “But this is our first weekend…we haven’t even really had a weekend.” I heard him take a deep breath. “I mean… fine.”

  I could tell he was really struggling with it, but he’d surprised me by agreeing. That was why I was falling in love with him. I kept expecting him to be awful and he wasn’t. He was wonderful.

  “Wow, you agreed so quickly. Did I call the right number?” Teasing always worked for us.

  “Trust me, agreement wasn’t my first reaction, but sure, if you want to celebrate, I would love to be there with you.”

  He sounded sincere. Who was this guy?

  “So, how do we handle the whole ‘I’m famous…blah diddy blah?’”

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Just have him walk in? Send an email asking my friends to pretend they don’t notice him? Say nothing and watch him get attacked? Tough choices.

  “Blah diddy blah?” he was laughing; that was a good sign.

  “Well, do you want me to tell people, or…um put you in a gorilla suit?”

  “Do you trust your friends?”

  I’d been going for a laugh, but he was serious again.

  “Mostly.” That was true. Some of the people I invited weren’t always the most trustworthy people; they’d blab it all on social media for sure. “Some of them might gossip though. Artists are, well… you know, dramatic, bitchy queens at times.”

  “Okay, so maybe send out an email introducing me and give them a heads up that I’m there for you, not to find a new actor, writer, or filmmaker. That will hopefully discourage people from approaching me for work stuff. Say it’s a private thing for the two of us. That might deter the Twitter feeds from blowing up.” I hated that he had to deal with this all the time.

  “That must be so annoying,” I commiserated.

  “It’s my job. A party sounds like fun though. I’ll wear a baseball cap and try to blend in.”

  “A floppy beanie and a hoodie would be better, but you couldn’t pull it off, so a baseball cap will work. I’ve seen you wear one of those, you don’t look too weird in it.”

  He was so handsome, but he looked ridiculous in things that weren’t tailored to perfection.

  “Thanks… I think. Okay, gotta go. I’m late for a meeting.”

  “Talk to you later.”

  Once we disconnected, I went back to prepping for the party and working on some drawings for the series I was tentatively calling “So, Now it’s X.”

  The week went by pretty fast since I had so much to do. I only balled my eyes out two significant times. I felt like denial was really working for me. The decorations looked amazing, and the food was fun. To go with our graffiti theme, we chose a burger bar with all kinds of creative fixings, a salad bar, since most of my friends were health freaks, and an open bar with some artisan drinks Tammy’s boyfriend wanted to make. By Friday night, the party was all ready to go. I just had to put things out in their respective places and we would get our party on the next day. KP showed up at about midnight.

  He was finishing up production on an edgy chick flick with a couple of aging stars and a hot newcomer that had “Oscar worthy” written all over it, so he was going the extra mile. Ugh. Entertainment industry lingo, what a snore. When he walked in, I could tell he was tired.

  “Hi.” Even though I wanted to jump him, he looked way too tired for nighttime fun.

  Where did my crazy libido come from? I’d never been this horny in my life. I’m sure I could have enticed KP to join me in some nocturnal calisthenics, but he looked totally exhausted.

  “Hey, love,” he said as he walked in.

  “I made you a snack. I thought you’d be hungry. Fruit skewers, Manchego, and Chardonnay.” I showed him the platter I’d arranged decoratively. I hoped he could see I made an effort, just for him.

  “I love this.” He leaned in and kissed me.

  We sat on the porch together while he ate and vented about production. I was glad to be his sounding board. I started to find his line of work really interesting, and I was quickly swept up. By the time he was done venting and eating, it was almost two in the morning. We had agreed to meet Wenton early for breakfast, which meant we probably had to call it a night.

  It was wonderful falling asleep in KP’s arms. He felt so perfect and having him back at my house felt like he belonged here, and it actually seemed like he had always been here.

  When we saw Wenton, he seemed excited to finish the portrait and see the final product. I hadn’t let him see it because I didn’t want him to self-criticize. Painting was a step-by-step process that evolved over layers, so I’d forbidden him to look at it and kept it locked away until I was ready for the final unveiling next week.

  Although he seemed happy to see us, he also seemed sad. Ever since family week, he’d looked tired and older than when I first met him. KP said his heart was slowing down, and I didn’t want to admit it, but I could see the toll it was taking on them both. However, I didn’t think Wenton had any sense of his own mortality. We broached the subject once, and he said he was happy to live in heaven one day. KP didn’t want to go into too much detail, as large concepts like death, dying, and illness were hard for Wenton to grasp.

  We puzzled for a moment about what was troubling him. But as soon as KP asked Wenton what he wanted to do, we found out what had Wenton all in knots.

  “I haven’t gotten a picture since the one of Caitlyn, and that was too long ago.”

  KP nodded. “Oh right, the scavenger hunt. Well, buddy, as I said, that was a very tall order, but I’m working on it.”

  I remembered that he’d been tasked with “falling in love.” I wanted to pipe in and say, bingo, he’d done it, but I wasn’t completely sure he had. We loved each other, but falling in love — that totally selfless place where you find your soul mate? I was heading down that road, but I wasn’t completely sure that KP had. It was as hard for him as he’d said it would be.

  “If it helps at all, Wenton, I know how hard he’s trying to find what you want him to look for.” I smiled, wanting to show him that I was working with KP to accomplish this goal.

  “I’m not worried about you, Caitlyn. It’s him!” He pointed an angry finger at his brother.

  “Okay. I’ll send you a picture tonight. I have one in mind, okay? No worries.”

  Time for a change of subject. “So what are we doing today?” I asked.

  “I got Twister!” Wenton squealed.

  KP and I both looked at the plastic mat with the brightly colored circles with dread. I was young but probably too old to get all twisted up.
/>   “Where are my yoga pants when I need them?” KP joked.

  We played for a while, and Wenton, though he loved the game because it made him laugh, was terrible at it. We all fell down a lot, but it was fun. Wenton always made us have fun in ways we didn’t expect we could.

  After Twister, I finished his painting, which turned out gorgeous. KP was thrilled. We locked it away to dry and had lunch with Wenton before he went down for a nap. He was getting fatigued more quickly these days, another sign that his illness had been progressing.

  The doctor consulted KP again about moving Wenton into the medical ward. KP continued to refuse, saying that he would pay more to have the staff moved to his cottage. Wenton didn’t belong in a hospital. He had the money to afford the best, so he was going to give him the very best money would offer.

  “I’m not having him moved,” KP fumed. “That’s it. They’re a hospital; they can keep him in his cottage and not scare him by moving him to the big house. He’s not as sick as they say.”

  I saw through the anger to the fear living behind it.

  “KP, you know what’s best for him. You’re everything he has. Go with your gut and make every day with him count.”

  He knew I was there for him. He wouldn’t face this alone.

  By the time we got to my house, Tammy, Ricky, and crew were already there and the party had been set up. There was a big “Congratulations” banner in front of the house I wasn’t expecting, all done in graffiti style. It was so cool.

  “I love it,” I said, looking at the sign.

  KP smiled down at me. “Your friends really love you.”