There’s a reprieve when I return from lunch, and I retreat to my office. Sitting at my desk, I fiddle with my phone.

Text Claire.

Scrounging my brain for a reason, I’m left empty-handed. Because I want to talk to her doesn’t feel like a good enough one. I can wait until I’m home. Summon her for another hunt, put my newfound aftercare knowledge to use, and have a conversation afterward. See if I can work in an apology without making her uncomfortable. I’m oddly excited for it.

Thinking of hunting reminds me of a website I bookmarked last night. Clicking it open, I peruse the home page. It’s a kink resource directory, listing and linking to dozens of potentially interesting websites. As I scroll through the options, one stands out.

Comprehensive Kink Test

The link leads to a website that promises to help me identify my kinks. It looks legitimate, the design and layout vaguely academic. A check of my watch shows I have twenty minutes until my next appointment.

Fuck it.

After entering my age and reading a quick how-to blurb, I’m ready. This will be a breeze. A statement will appear on the screen, and below it, there will be a line numbered one through five. What number I select is determined by the statement’s accuracy. Five means it’s completely true; one means it’s completely false.

Simple enough.

I click to begin the test.

The first statement pops up: I like being degraded by my partner during sex.

Do I?

I can’t think of a time I’ve ever wished someone would degrade me, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it.

Three it is.

On to the next. I like to tie or otherwise physically restrain my partner during sex.

Another thing I’ve never considered. Again, neutral and opting for three.

The statements keep coming, and my answers don’t change. Threes for days, useless in their lack of preference. Is it me or the test? I keep waiting for something to spark inside me, catch fire the way it did when I learned that hunting was a thing.

I’d been looking at Claire across the Christmas party, watching while she chatted with a woman I didn’t recognize. Keith had been droning on to Tanner and me. I hadn’t paid attention until he’d said Claire. Then I’d tuned in, absorbing every detail he spilled, discovering that the idea of hunting a woman—Claire—through the woods was immensely appealing.

I click to the next question: I enjoy leaving evidence of play on my partner, such as bruises or bite marks.

Wait.

Testing the theory I’m forming, I mentally edit the sentence. I enjoy leaving evidence of play on Claire, such as bruises or bite marks. My cock twitches. I choose five.

Next question: I don’t mind playful resistance from my partner.

Again, I make my edit, and again, I get a five.

I fly through the questions, applying each scenario to Claire.

Receiving pain? Four.

Exerting control? Five.

Denying orgasm? Four.

Most activities hold at least some appeal when I consider doing them with Claire. With the exception of watching her have sex with someone else—a hard one—or her watching me have sex with someone else—also a hard one—I’m game to try almost anything.

Leaning back in my chair, I try to make sense of this new information. Few activities interest me when I consider them with some nonspecific partner. With Claire, though…

Is it still a kink awakening if I only want it with her?

Remembering how dismal the hunts were with the two professionals makes my skin crawl. It feels uncomfortably significant that my only successful, enjoyable primal experiences have been with Claire. There’s no relief at moving closer to solving this mystery, though. Discovering I have new sexual interests is far less intimidating than discovering that I have sexual—and perhaps emotional—interest in a specific person. A person who has been through a horrible, possibly traumatizing, relationship. And I hired her to fuck me, complete with a contract essentially stating I don’t even have to show her a baseline level of consideration afterward.

Does she think I’m like Keith? Selfish and sex-obsessed?

There’s a knock at my office door. Shit. All sense of time has escaped me. Forcing my brain back to work mode for my appointment, I shove all thoughts of kink and Claire out of my head.

Hours later, climbing into my SUV to head home, I contemplate my discovery again. My phone rings before the vehicle is even in drive, my brother’s name and number flashing across the dash panel.

I answer. Caine’s voice fills the SUV. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.” I’m half listening, my thoughts far from the conversation. “Why?”

“Because I’m house-sitting like fifteen miles from the firm.”

“Why? Is it haunted?” Caine lives about an hour and a half away. He’s a tattoo artist and manages the Abattoir, Newbound’s haunted house attraction, every autumn.

“Funny. No, but it belongs to Alyssa—I know her through the haunt. Her house sitter canceled on her last minute, so she asked me. You should come over.”

I want to go home and talk to Claire. But I haven’t seen Caine since last Halloween. He’s also probably the only person in my life I can talk candidly to about my relationship with Claire. As I’m debating, he badgers me: “Come on, what else are you going to do? It’s not like you have better company waiting at home.”

“Fine.” I fight a groan as I relent. I can practically hear the arrogant grin spreading across his face. “But you’re wrong about the ‘better company’ part.”

TWENTY Shane

I’m sure there’s a tasteful, subtle way to work up to telling my brother that there’s a woman staying in my house so I can hunt her. A way to set up the reveal so that it comes across as mildly eccentric, or maybe even funny. Chugging four Jack and Cokes to get my nerve up and blurting, “I think I’m in love with the woman I’m hunting,” is not that way.

Unfortunately, it’s the way I chose.

I’m sitting on a futon in a stranger’s living room. Caine’s cross-legged on the floor, the feathered cat toy he was dragging back and forth now limp on the rug. An orange tabby waits beneath the coffee table, tail flicking as if convinced the toy’s stillness is a trap. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my brother speechless before.

He stares at me for a full minute before responding. “I don’t know what part of that sentence has me more fucked up, hunting or love.”

“Trust me, it’s the love part.” I’ve made peace with the hunting. So I like to chase a breathtaking woman through the woods, wrestle her into submission, and fuck her until she screams. There are far more concerning interests I could have.

“No, it’s the hunting.” Caine’s had a few drinks too, but not as many as me. Or maybe he has, and he’s just better at drinking.

“That’s the fun part,” I mutter, reclining on the futon. Tilting my head back, I study an old water stain on the ceiling. It looks like a dog, or maybe a deer. I squint. Definitely a deer.

Should I have texted Claire that I wouldn’t be home to watch Real Estate Wreck?

Shit, I should have.

Fuck. I’m a dick.

A dick who doesn’t text.

Or do aftercare.

I need to text Claire.

Caine’s saying something, but I’m not listening.

Where is my phone?

Straightening, I start digging through my pockets.