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only way I’d be able to steel myself on what to say. I could just pretend I was an actress in another high school production. My character was confidant, horny, and very experienced.

  “When can we meet again?”

  “I’m sorry, Lena. I don’t know.”

  “You said yourself that you were lonely.”

  “Look. I hope things go great for you in New York, but I don’t think it’s right that I see much of you. Raya can explain that.”

  “Raya’s explained nothing to me. All she did was give me your address.”

  At this, his eyes narrowed. “Nothing at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “So you don’t know why I’m worried for you. Or what happened in Central Park.”

  At this, my face lit up. “Tell me!”

  “Look. I think Raya’s wrong. You’re a teenager, not a child. So the least I can do is help to explain some of these things.”

  “I really like spending time with you,” I admitted, blushing all over my body. “Can’t we just hang out sometimes?”

  “No. But I need to at least explain why.”

  I frowned. “You do. Right now, please.”

  Bay glanced at the passersby. In typical New York fashion, none of them looked particularly interested. But all the same, there were lots of people, moving fast.

  “Come over next Wednesday after work. I’ll make something for dinner.”

  “Can I have some of the famous wild boar?”

  “Sure.”

  VIII.

  When I went into Bay's house, the air was redolent with the smell of cooking meat.

  "Mm," I said, "That smells amazing."

  He ran back to the kitchen. "I'm sorry, I forgot to open the window! Make yourself at home."

  I walked around the living room. Bay's style was definitely Spartan. There were odd stacks of business papers, sure, but he didn’t have a bunch of junk. In fact, I was loathe to disturb the perfect symmetry of his bookshelf, so I looked for a magazine instead.

  In the middle of his magazine stack, I found a really weird pamphlet. It read, “Bengals got you down? Rise Up! Call now for membership in a Xiamen-Siberian dating pool. Finally, here’s a chance for you to be King of the Forest!!”

  Just as I pulled open the brochure, I heard Bay’s footsteps, so I shut it immediately.

  “Hi,” he said, looking flushed but sexy. “I’ve laid out the meats on the table! Come try them out.”

  So I followed him into the dining room.

  IX.

  The evening started out nearly perfect, and so it continued. It was interesting hearing more about Bay’s life. Apparently, he was such a young immigrant that he could hardly remember coming to the states, but his Chinese was excellent. He’d grown up in Utah, but moved to New York to build his business.

  We migrated from the dining room to the living room. I wanted to show Bay exactly where I was from, so I grabbed the well-worn atlas off his shelf and flipped through, trying to find Minnesota.

  “Let me help you,” said Bay, leaning over my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my neck.

  It was a good thing he was now flipping through the book, because any academic knowledge I’d possessed had suddenly deserted me.

  Then Bay looked straight into me eyes, and I waited for him to lean in. The street was so quiet that we could hear the wind rustling in the trees. In every movie out there, this is the moment when the big kiss happens.

  Instead, for me, it was the moment when Bay decided to flip out.

  “Lena! We have to get you home.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “I’m so sorry. It’s gotten really late—I guess I lost track of time.”

  "Come on," I said, putting my feet onto his couch. "You let me stay on your couch to protect you. Why shouldn't I do the same thing?"

  "No," he snapped, striding away.

  I leapt up. My heart was racing. Maybe it was Bay who was causing the danger. Was he angry enough to hurt me?

  He started to pace. "I'm sorry, Lena. I do want you to be safe. But can't I send you back to Raya's? You can go with a driver I know, it'll be no problem."

  Now my lip was starting to quiver. I tried to be firm. "This isn't a very nice way to end the evening."

  He cracked his knuckles. "Shit, I guess it's not."

  The charm came back as he pulled me to my feet. "Here's what we'll do. A friend of mine bartends just down the block, so we can head there for a while."

  His clock read 2:19 am. It seemed insane that I was awake so late, and yet the adrenaline of Bay's presence ensured I was anything but tired.

  "Will we get served?" Sitcoms had served me well. I knew that New York bars closed at some point, and that maybe it was like two. Or something.

  "It's ok," he said, "As I told you, I know the bartender."

  X.

  Maybe Bay was getting cranky. After we got to the bar, he did seem a little less tense. He had ordered me some kind of microbrew thing, which was technically my first (though I wasn’t about to tell him that). I barely made anything of my beer, but he had a few different drinks, and he seemed to get both sleepy and good-natured.

  That all ended when I tried to playfully take a sip of his cocktail.

  “This is a man’s drink, right,” I teased, snapping it up. “What type of flavors do you like, manly man?”

  “Give me that.” He yanked it back and drank it down.

  Disappointment must have been streaked across my face. His reaction was so abrupt that I felt a little bit like snapping back, but I just took another sip of beer. It was ok, except for the barf aftertaste.

  “Sorry,” said Bay, “I guess I snapped at you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think it’s just a reaction from growing up. You know, trying to protect your stuff from siblings and all that.”

  “Okay.”

  “I am sorry, Lena. Now, tell me again about your plan to overthrow your boss’s evil sidekick.”

  Well, nobody really asked me about that, except for my co-conspirator Lakisha. So I had to give him a pass.

  XI.

  We made it to the stairwell of Bay’s place. The plan was to go upstairs and call me a cab so I could get home. But like every other thing that happened in our short acquaintance, this idea did not go according to plan.

  When my lips met Bay’s, I was shocked by his strength.

  He pulled me to him, and he arms were big and sinewy. Even though I was a little bit taller, it definitely seemed that he was dominant.

  But he pulled away quickly and went to sit on his couch.

  “I’m sorry, Lena.”

  I bit my lip. “Sorry for what?”

  “What was supposed to happen tonight? I was going to tell you why we couldn’t date. I was going to give you more information.”

  “So why aren’t you doing that?”

  He took a deep breath. “Because I want you.”

  I walked toward him. “So let’s not rule anything out just yet?”

  Bay nodded and drew me in for another kiss. But this time, I was the one who pulled away.

  “Why don’t you want me to even come upstairs?”

  “Lena, why do you actually want to come upstairs? You know I don’t drink, and I know that you hate espresso, which is the only acceptable non-alcoholic thing to have at this hour.”

  “Are you worried about the neighbors.”

  He looked almost sick. “I don’t have neighbors.”

  “Who lives downstairs?”

  “I use that as storage space for my business, and an office.”

  I grabbed his hand in mine. Bay was shockingly strong, and he could have resisted.

  But as I lead him inside, he didn’t.

  We stood in the hallway and duked it out.

  “Look, I may not have done this before, but I don’t want to wait.” I tried to grab at his crotch, but he held my hand back.

  “Lena, trust me, you have no idea what you’re asking for.”

>   “I know exactly what I’m asking for. I want it so much that I’m sick!”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “So don’t hurt me.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  We were at a stalemate.

  So Bay took me into the basement.

  XII.

  I hadn’t known that the building even had a basement. The ceilings were fairly low, and it was definitely unfinished. The majority of the space was taken up by cleaning supplies. It was also fenced in, nearly like a cage. I figured that valuables were often stored there. But why was it nearly empty now?

  Behind the powerful smell of bleach and soap was some other kind of smell. Maybe a cat lady had once lived there? No, it wasn’t quite that wild.

  Bay used his finger to unlock the cage part. It was the most sophisticated lock I’d ever seen. Fingerprint recognition seemed like a bit much, really. He could have just used a chain.

  “Bay? I don’t get it.”

  Most women, on being taken to a dungeon of sorts, would probably fear for their lives. But I was just confused.

  He shed is coat and sighed. Then he took off his shoes, socks, and shirts, and stuck them through the bars.

  His chest was gorgeous and gleaming. His tan skin was basically perfect, and I was so lost at the sight of him that it took me a second to accept the clothing.

  Then he lost his pants and his boxers and handed them out, again through the bars.

  “Lena, go stand behind the screen in the corner.”

  I hadn’t even noticed that screen. It wasn’t like a screen for a window, more like a latticework thing with very small gaps. Weird to have something protective like that outside of the cage thing. I couldn’t imagine what it was for.

  “I’ll just stay here.”

  Bay stood in front of me in naked glory. “Lena, I’m not going to ask you again. Stand behind that screen. I know exactly what is happening here, and apparently you have no idea.”

  I piled Bay’s clothes and shoes on a folding chair in the corner, a