“There were horses there. What farmer’s market has horses?” Kat said to me as we walked up the stairs to my place carrying our two bags.

“Farmer’s markets can have horses.” I said.

“In the middle of the city?” Kat said, laughing.

“Well, it’s Beverly Hills,” I said, as if that explained everything. And truthfully, it did. Families in Bentleys and Land Rovers paying $20 a person so their children could pet a duckling, feed a baby goat some straw, and then ride on a horse for a few minutes.

“I can’t wait to try the honey,” Kat said. “We should have gotten the big jar. How much was that?”

“Eighty dollars,” I said, and she laughed at the absurdity of people spending that much.

“And not yet,” I said, and she caught the look in my eye and the tone in my voice, and knew what was coming next.

“I should go to the bathroom”, she said. I shrugged, sat down, and waited patiently on the couch for her to return. Which she did, a few minutes later, dressed only in a black bra and panties. She knew what I liked.

“Come Here,” I told her, and she was in front of me instantly, acknowledging my command, and looking up at me expectantly. I ran my hand through her thick dark hair that seemed to have grown an inch longer in just the week that she had been here in California.

Healthy hair is a sign of reproductive fitness, I had read somewhere. But in truth, everything about Kat was that sort of sign. Kat was the kind of young girl a guy like me puts a baby in, consequences be damned, just because that’s the kind of opportunity that comes around once in a lifetime.

“Take off your bra,” I said, and she did, freeing her small, perfect breasts, and then giving the right one a rough squeeze with a sly smile, copying the photo she had sent me just after we had met. I had never shared that photo with anyone else because she had told me that it was for me and me alone, and besides who would have believed that I didn’t just find it on the Internet somewhere. My life has been stranger than fiction for a long time.

“Straddle me,” I said, and she did, climbing on my lap and spreading her legs. My hand was on that same breast, putting her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.

“When it hurts, I want you to kiss me,” I told her. “And kiss me like you fucking mean it.”

“Yes, sir,” Kat said. She had played this game before, and loved it. I squeezed hard, and she gasped, and then put her tongue in my mouth with enough pressure to push me into the couch. And I loved the game too. Making her pleasure me made her body responsive to the point where she’d eagerly take my cum without a thought for her own pleasure.

But for some reason, I didn’t love the game today.

“Just sit next to me,” I told her. It wasn’t a command that I used or even something I would have normally said to her. “Just sit down.”

“Okay,” Kat said as she got off my lap, confused. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I think I’ve been too nice to you,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” Kat said, obediently, waiting to see what was coming next, and what role I was playing with her.

“I’ve been treating you like my girlfriend,” I said. “Instead of what you are.”

As I watched, Kat’s face grew dark, as she realized that this wasn’t any part of a game that we were playing. It was becoming one of those conversations that we had promised to avoid.

“I know what I am,” Kat said softly but bitterly. “Men like you use me. And I fucking need it.”

“You enjoy it,” I said.

“Yes, of course I do. What do you want from me?” Kat asked, an edge to her voice. “I do anything you want, whenever you want. I give you everything I have.”

“Fuck off,” I told her, and she looked at me, shocked. It was one of our commands, but I had never said it to her, not like this.

“You can’t do that,” Kat said. “Not now.” But I glared at her, and she acknowledged my direction.

Men need their space, I had told her, when I was teaching her that command. But most men aren’t self-aware enough to know it, so they pull away abruptly and painfully, hurting the women close to them, sending them reeling, and breaking their trust.

But here’s my promise to you, Kat, I had told her. When I tell you to fuck off, it’s only for right now. Just be patient, and I promise I’ll come back to you. It had seemed almost romantic at the time, but now, in this moment, me using those words just made her angrier.

“Fine. I’ll be outside when you figure your shit out,” Kat said, and she left to put on some clothes and then sit on the steps of the porch in the cool night air and look up at the stars. When she was gone I went to my gym and dialed in fifty pounds on the adjustable dumbbells and grunted my way though a set.