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But Ben granted her no concessions. “You’re welcome to go naked the whole week.”
Then maybe I don’t want to stay the whole week.
This time she curbed herself from saying anything rash. Ben had said he wasn’t going to force her to stay and had even offered to fly her back to San Francisco in his jet. He had sounded sincere. But she didn’t have enough material for her story. And she couldn’t abandon Claire to Jake. He might be as bad as the man who had beaten up Kimani’s roommate.
“I’ll find a way to pay you back,” Kimani decided aloud. Maybe she’d make a donation in his name to the ACLU or the local Black Women’s Political Caucus. Maybe then he’d prefer to take her money.
He gave her an amused look but said nothing as they neared Weaverville. With the Trinity Alps as its backdrop, Weaverville was a picturesque Gold Rush town. Though the last census pegged the population at less than four thousand people, the main street looked busy, probably from the influx of tourists taking advantage of the area’s outdoor sports offerings.
The clothing retail options were limited, but Ben found a thrift store to park in front of. He left her alone to peruse the clothing racks. She found a tank top, t-shirt, a long knit skirt that went almost to her ankles, a pair of khaki shorts, a sports bra, flip-flops, a silk scarf to tie her hair up at night, and cheap sunglasses so that she could return Ben his Louis Vutton shades. At the checkout, Ben had a few items to purchase as well: candles, clothespins and a set of chopsticks. She wondered what the clothespins were for. Surely he wasn’t planning to do laundry at the cabin?
Eager to be out of her heels and strange ensemble, she changed into the shirt, shorts and flip-flops and immediately felt better. Now she only needed underwear.
As if reading her mind, B
en said, “There’s a CVS store about a mile down.”
“Can we walk?” she asked. The summer sun shone warmly, and she preferred taking in the downtown scenery with its many 19th century buildings to going back to the cabin where Jake and his buddies were.
After putting their purchase in the car, they started walking down Main Street. She had never been in this part of the state before. Her eyes lighted upon seeing a sign for the Joss House State Historic Park.
Ben didn't miss much. “You want to check it out?”
“Definitely!”
While on Jake's boat earlier today, upset that Ben had her go naked like the other three women, she had insinuated he was an asshole. But moments like this showed he couldn't be a complete asshole. This and the fact that he had let her take a nap in his room yesterday afternoon and had looked upset to see the basement where Jake had her and the other “sluts” sleep. Ben had made sure she and Claire had had something to eat when they were hungry after being made by Jake to kneel on the floor for three hours. And, despite having made her come twice yesterday and once today, he had yet to ask or demand she return the favor. He had made no bones about the fact that he had purchased her for sex, so why hadn't he made her do anything? Maybe he was embarrassed about his size down there? Somehow, she doubted that was what was holding him back. When she felt more generously inclined toward him, she thought that perhaps he just wanted to make her comfortable. But surely that was giving him too much credit? After all, he had paid money—a ridiculous amount of money—for sex. He couldn't be that different from the other overgrown frat boys: Jake, Derek, and Jason.
Turning the corner, they came upon a quaint red building. Built in 1874 and dubbed “The Temple of the Forest Beneath the Clouds,” the Weaverville Joss House was the oldest Chinese Temple in California. Weaverville was once home to some 2,000 Chinese gold miners. Many Chinese immigrants came to California in the nineteenth century for the state’s famed Gold Rush or to work as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. Their large numbers caused Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only US law ever to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race.
The interior housed displays of art, pictures, mining tools and weapons used in the 1854 Tong war.
“A friend of mine carried a small hatchet similar to this one,” said Ben, almost to himself.
“Why would he carry around a hatchet?” Kimani asked.
“He was old-fashioned. Didn't like guns because they were a Western invention.”
“Gunpowder was a Chinese invention, though I guess it was the Europeans who used it for mass destruction and guns. Was your friend extremely paranoid? Or was carrying around a hatchet some kind of alpha guy thing?”
“Chen Kai wasn't more paranoid than the rest of us.”
“Rest of us?”
“When I was young and my father was busy taking the family business to the next level, I started getting into gangs. That's why he shipped me off to boarding school in London.”
“Were you pretty deep in a gang?”
“I didn’t kill anyone if that's what you're worried about.”
It was sort of what worried her. “So what did you do in the gang?”
“Not much since I was still pretty young at the time. Stupid boy shit. Probably got myself beat up more than anything else.”
She had a hard time imagining anyone beating up on Ben. She saw how he moved. Smooth like a ballerina, flowing like one of those dragons in the Chinese New Year’s Parade. She had seen him in nothing but his swim trunks. His muscles were well defined everywhere, not in a beefy way but plenty delicious for her to want to run her hands over the planes and ridges of his chest and torso.
“Did you have to carry a weapon?” she asked.
“I carried a knife and learned how to make myself a weapon through martial arts. The gang was small potatoes, only loosely connected to one of the triads but enough to worry my dad.”
