Tormented

by EM BROWN

“Maybe just a little.”

  As Keisha and Tara got to work, Kimani thought about the punishment she would suggest. She wanted to say that wearing the chastity belt was punishment enough. She couldn’t find a comfortable position to sit. And she dreaded having to go to the bathroom with the thing on.

  But Ben wouldn’t buy that. He’d want something substantive. Something involving the stuff he had in his playroom. The flogger maybe. Or paddle. He had quite the collection of each. Wooden paddles, leather paddles. Paddles with holes, paddles with textures, and even paddles with hearts. As for the floggers, there were at least two dozen...

  “So, who’s the guy?”

  “What’s that?” Kimani asked, flushing at the type of thoughts occupying her mind.

  “He must be special. You’ve never had me add color before,” Keisha replied.

  Kimani was silent as the words sank in. It was true.

  “And paying me double, girl? You get a bonus from work or an early Christmas gift?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Or maybe she got herself a sugar daddy?” Tara teased.

  “What? I’d never—”

  “You got yourself somebody,” Keisha said.

  “I don’t have anybody.”

  “You can’t fool us. You might be busy, but you’re resourceful. You have options. You don’t have to get microbraids.”

  Shit. Keisha was right. She had booked this appointment partially so that she wouldn’t have to worry about her hair for the next two months, but also out of vanity. Did she want to look good for Ben?

  “It’s for business,” Kimani explained. “Sort of. I need this guy for a scoop I’m working on. I gotta keep on his good side.”

  “Un-hunh. Business. Who you think you foolin’?”

  Kimani bit her lip. This was worse than she’d thought. Bad enough that she was screwing around with him. But falling for him? That was ten times worse. It would be disastrous.

  There was no potential for them. The guy had bought her for sex. No way could he be relationship material. Not that he would choose her even if he was. Aside from basketball and Stanford, they didn’t have much in common. And while she understood that opposites attracted, she believed that there had to be enough common ground for a relationship to succeed in the long term.

  “Maybe we can skip the color,” Kimani said.

  “We’re doing color. I already envisioned it,” Keisha said.

  Since there was no use arguing with Keisha, who was so stubborn she’d give mules a run for their money, Kimani tried to steer the conversation to other subjects, to no avail.

  “I don’t think he even lives here,” she said, trying to put an end to their inquiries. “I’m sure his home is in Hong Kong or Beijing.”

  “But if business brings him to the Bay Area,” Tara said, “who’s to say he can’t move?”

  “I’ve known the guy for all of three days. If he moves across the world for someone he’s known less than a week, I’d have a problem with that.”

  “You don’t believe in love at first sight?”

  “I don’t, and even if I did, this is not about love or anything romantic! It’s business.”

  “Un-hunh. ‘Business,’” Keisha said again, exchanging a look with Tara. “So if it’s not about romance, you looking to get laid?”

  Kimani felt her face turn into a furnace.

  “I never been with an Asian guy before,” Tara mused aloud as she wove a dark gold extension into one of the braids. “They any good?”

  “I’m not an expert,” Kimani objected to the question. “And I bet just like all other men, some of them are good, some aren’t...”

  “But...?” Keisha prompted.

  It was as if she could read Kimani’s mind and see the mind-blowing orgasms Ben had pulled out of her, the times he had made her gush so much she’d thought she had peed.

  “Girl, you going to braid my hair or what?” Kimani demanded.

  Keisha chuckled and turned to Tara. “I think someone’s got the hots bad.”

  “I do not!” Kimani wanted to reply, feeling like she was back in elementary school with her girlfriends taunting her with the “sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g” chant.

  By the time her hair was done, she wondered at the wisdom of having come, but when she saw the finished weave in the mirror, she reconsidered.

  “Damn, girl,” Keisha whistled. “I just made you the hottest sister around.”

  Kimani studied the braids, dozens of them, with dark browns and gold woven subtly into them. It was the most amazing weave she had ever had.

  “If this guy doesn’t jump all over you, there’s something wrong with him,” Tara agreed.

  That’s what I’m afraid of, Kimani thought to herself.

  Then why’d you get your hair done?

  After paying Keisha more than double, Kimani had Wong drive her to a coffee shop near the San Francisco Tribune’s offices in the South of Market district.

  “You do something different with your hair?” Sam asked as they sat down at a table, he with a latte and she with a cup of green tea.

  “I got braids,” she answered.

  “Cool. So I looked into what PACs had been formed recently. And there’s one called Oakland Forward: A Coalition of Community Members for Oakland’s Future. Sounds nice, right? Well, looking at the donor list, it’s almost all developers. I’m going to try to talk to Ezra Rosenstein. He’s speaking at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon today.”

  She knit her brows. “What do you expect to find?”

  “It’s against the law for an independent expenditure to communicate with a candidate or his campaign.”

  “What about the Scarlet Auction? Or Jake Whitehurst? You dig up anything there?”

  “Nothing interesting about Whitehurst. His father founded the Whitehurst Agency, and they represent a number of players in the NBA and NFL. Jake graduated cum laude from USC and went straight to work for his dad’s sports agency.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. What did you think I was going to find? A criminal record?”

  She thought of the college athlete who had been caught raping a drunk woman outside a party. The judge had sentenced the young man to time served. An uproar had followed from people who’d thought the perpetrator had gotten off easy because he was a student at an elite university.

  “I guess not,” she sighed.

  “Is the guy dangerous?”

  “I’m pretty sure he is. Just like the guy who beat up my roommate.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Did he hurt someone?”

  “It’s just the way he treats the woman he bid on, who’s really young.” Kimani wasn’t ready to admit what had happened between her and Jake because she didn’t want Sam to pull the plug on the story, which he would if he thought she was in danger.

  “Are you up close to all this?”

  She nodded. “All of us, four couples total, are staying at a remote lakeside cabin somewhere about an hour from Weaverville. It’s Jake’s cabin. Or at least his dad’s.”

  “And the women are forced to have sex?”

  “No, it’s consensual. They get paid.”

  “What about you? How’d you end up there? You said Benjamin Lee wasn’t at the auction.”

  “I was bid on first by Jake. Ben came along and took me off Jake’s hands.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “He saw I didn’t like my situation.”

  “So he’s a good Samaritan?”

  Sort of. Would a good Samaritan make her wear a chastity belt for hours? But given that she didn’t have to be under Jake’s thumb anymore, she would credit Ben as a good Samaritan.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I lucked out. But the challenge is going to be getting any of the women to go on record with their experiences. We had to sign these crazy-long nondisclosure agreements, and they didn’t give us enough time to read everything, especially the fine print.”

  “So what’s your
plan?”

  “I gotta go back to the cabin, finish out the week, and try to get to know these women as best I can.”

  “When are you going back?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe tonight. Ben hasn’t said.”

  “You hear anything about his meeting?”

  She hesitated, but answered, “It’s with Dawson Chang, head of the Asian Pacific Community Alliance.”

  “You did a story on Dawson.”

  “I did a profile on Carlos De Reyes, a protege of Dawson’s.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, I—shouldn’t we focus on the Scarlet Auction?”

  “You seemed pretty interested in the Lee family when you first called me.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think there’s anything there after all, whereas I know for sure the Scarlet Auction is messed up.”

  “Well, don’t be too hasty. I could use a good scoop before the owners’ meeting, and I’ll take it from wherever.”

  She remembered he had suggested the possibility the ownership would shut down the paper.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try my best.”

  Looking down into her mug, she saw that she had drunk most of the tea without realizing it. Great. She had managed to go through the whole morning without needing to go. How much longer could she last?

  “I better jet to make it to the Chamber of Commerce luncheon,” said Sam as he got up. “Keep me posted.”

  After he left, she contemplated what she’d told him. She no longer felt keen about digging into Ben’s family, but if there was anything illegal going on, then that truth ought to come out. In any case, she doubted what she had told Sam would amount to anything.

  She stood up to leave, but Wong had appeared.

  “Mr. Lee is on his way here.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ben whirled Kimani’s pen over the top of his hand as he sat in the passenger seat of his Porsche, with Bataar driving, and took a call from Stephens, who managed special projects for him. Stephens had access to computer hackers and had sent Ben a copy of the contract Jake had signed with the Scarlet Auction.

  Jake was right that any selling, lending or granting of his purchase to a third party required authorization from the Scarlet Auction.

  To Ben’s surprise, Jake hadn’t responded to his text yet about Kimani. If Ben didn’t have to worry about Jason, he would spend the rest of the week in the Bay Area and have Kimani all to himself. He wondered how she had gotten along with the chastity belt. She had probably cursed him a good deal.

  “Bataar had me do background on Jake Whitehurst,” Stephens said. “You want more done on him?”

  “No,” Ben answered. “You get anything else on Kimani Taylor?”

  “I could pull her high school transcript,” Stephens joked, because he had looked into her undergraduate and graduate school grades. “I stopped looking into her when Bataar put in his request. You want financials? I’ve got her FICO score and shit like that. She pays off her credit card every month.”

  “Did Kimani ever work for the San Francisco Tribune in any capacity? As an intern?”

  “Not that I can find.”

  “What about this Sam Green guy? Besides teaching one of her classes at the Berkeley journalism school, do they have any other connections together?”

  “I’ll dig deeper, but nothing else came up at first.”

  After ending his call with Stephens, Ben returned to the pen he held. It belonged to Kimani. She had looked upset when she couldn’t find it in Jake’s cabin. Because it wasn’t an ordinary pen. Inside, it had a USB, perhaps doubling as a flash drive.

  He could simply stick it into the adapter on his iPad to peruse the contents. The only thing holding him back was a sense of decorum/decency. He shouldn’t invade her privacy. But then, he had—or Stephens had on his behalf—hacked into her student profiles at Stanford and Berkeley, as well as her documents with the Scarlet Auction. The latter had netted him a most delightful questionnaire listing a variety of BDSM activities ranging from petplay to anal fisting. Kimani had rated all of the activities a “5,” which meant she couldn’t get enough of it.

  Based on the hesitancy she had exhibited at different times, he didn’t buy all her answers. But why would she lie?

  She had also lied about Sam, trying to pass off the editor of the Tribune as a worried female friend, when Stephens had discovered Sam was a married gay man. Ben recalled the conversation he had overhead between Kimani and Sam when she’d borrowed his mobile.

  They had talked about his family. About Uncle Gordon.

  Fuck decency. There was something off about Kimani.

  And when had he ever worried about decency? As a young man who had run with a gang, he had stolen things not because he’d needed whatever crap he stole, but because he could. When a rival gang member tried to harass his younger sister, he had beaten the guy beyond what was necessary. He didn’t have to break the prick’s arm, but he did.

  They weren’t the most exemplary years of his life. His father’s plan to send him to boarding school in England had worked as intended, for the most part.

  He was about to stick the pen into the USB adapter hooked to his iPad when the car pulled up in front of the coffee shop where Wong had parked. Setting aside the pen, Ben hopped out of the car.

  “Wong can drive,” he said to Bataar.

  “Better if I drive,” Bataar replied. “I can do my job that way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I can keep an eye on you that way.”

  “You don’t work for my dad anymore. You work for me.”

  “Sorry, boss. Old habits die hard.”

  Ben thought about how much he itched to get his hands on Kimani. He would have no qualms mauling her in front of his security detail. Nothing surprised or put off Bataar.

  “But I’ll let you drive,” Ben decided.

  Shutting the door, he walked over to where Wong stood in front of the SUV reading the Sing Tao Daily.

  “Who’s she having coffee with?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Lee. The man just left.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Medium height, yellow hair, late forties perhaps.”

  Ben didn’t like hearing that Kimani was meeting with a man, but if he was in his late forties, it wasn’t as likely to be a date.

  “Bataar is driving the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lee.”

  Leaving Wong, Ben walked into the small coffee shop.

  Fuck.

  Normally he was indifferent to weaves, or how women’s hair looked in general, but Kimani looked hot. The color at the bottoms of the braids drew attention, but somehow the tops of the braids, by deferring to her bright eyes and thick lashes, accentuated them.

  For a few seconds, he couldn’t move. All he could do was drink in the sight of her.

  She had just risen from her table and, seeing him, looked both disconcerted and relieved. She walked over to him. “I need to go, and I don’t want to do it wearing the thing.”

  He couldn’t resist a small grin. The situation reminded him of their drive back from Weaverville when she’d needed to piss. He had required her to masturbate herself so that arousal would supersede nature’s call.

  “You don’t like the belt?” he returned.

  “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

  “What didn’t you like about it?”

  She blinked several times. “Everything!”

  He took one of her braids in hand. He wanted to think she had gotten the extensions for him. “How often did you think about me?”

  She sucked in her breath. “Not that often.”

  “Then the belt didn’t do its job. Maybe I should leave it on till it starts to work.”

  Her eyes flared. He recognized that look in her eyes. It was the same one she had given him just before he’d acquired her. Fuck you, her glare had said then. It said that now.

  “Okay, I did think about yo
u a lot,” she relented, “but not in the way that you think.”

  “No? You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me to unlock your belt.”

  She glanced around when a couple at a nearby coffee table got up. Drawing in a breath, she said in as low a voice as possible, “I thought about you a lot, Master.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “I thought about what a nice guy you are for making me wear this thing.”

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I’ve already said I punish lies. You don’t want to know what I do with sarcasm or a bratty sub.”

  She shivered. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The need to piss must be increasing.

  “I am grateful my Master made me wear a chastity belt.”

  “No, you’re not. But I’ll allow the fib because it’s the right thing for a sub to say. What else?”

  “I like how you made me all hot and bothered before you put the belt on.”

  “Another good fib. Did you try to give yourself an orgasm?”

  That last word caught the ear of the young man sitting nearest to where they stood.

  Ignoring the guy’s look, Ben asked, “Did you, pet?”

  Kimani had seen the man turn around as well. She lowered her voice more. “I didn’t.”

  “Call me ‘Master.’”

  “I didn’t, Master.”

  “Why not?”

  “How could I have?”

  “Would you have if you could?”

  She hesitated, then answered, “Yes, Master.”

  “Would you like to now?”

  “Would I what?”

  “Like to give yourself an orgasm.”

  “I just want to pee right now. Please, Master, may I take off the belt?”

  “What would you like to do to show me you’re a pet worthy of having the chastity belt removed?”

  She squeezed her legs tighter together. “What would Master like?”

  What he would like to do couldn’t be done here, but he knew what he would settle for. He walked to the cashier to acquire the key for the bathroom. Luckily for Kimani, the bathroom was free. After unlocking the door for her, he followed her in. He unbuttoned then unzipped his trousers.

  “You want to do something here?” she cried. “In a public bathroom?”

  One of the benefits of being a guy was that they didn’t get bothered by things like environment. If needed, men could get it up standing in a pile of shit.