The Naughty Boxset

by Jasinda Wilder

  Now my tears were of helpless rage, because…I had a sinking feeling he was right.

  “Because you care. Because you have honor.” That same rough, yet tender, pad of his finger slid across my cheek, near the corner of my mouth, wiping away my tear. “You will obey me because you must. I do not, and never will, expect you to repay me monetarily —”

  “No,” I couldn’t help snapping, “you just expect me to fuck my way out of debt.”

  “Incorrect, Kyrie,” he responded. His voice was calm, but sharp as razors and cold as the vacuum of space. “Here is another promise I will make you: You and I will not engage in penetrative sexual intercourse unless you ask for it. And you will, Kyrie. That’s my promise, here. You will ask. You’ll beg me for it. But it won’t happen until, and unless, you ask me for it.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself,” I said, trying to sound stronger than I felt. In truth, the raw sincerity and utter surety in his voice shook me to the core. He believed what he said to be nothing but the unquestionable truth.

  “Yes, I am.” Now his voice was a mere breath of heat on the shell of my ear. “I will make sure you beg me for it.”

  Holy shit. What was I supposed to say to that? I could barely stand up. The potent mix of emotions this man engendered in me had me trembling, knees knocking. I was turned on, I had to admit. And that scared me. So badly. I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to be owned by him. But somehow, with nothing but a few words and touches, he had me aching in ways I’d never thought possible.

  “See?” His fingertip traced the apple of my cheek, ran beneath the swell of my lower lip. “Already you begin to understand. You’re turned on, Kyrie. I can smell it on you. Your nostrils are flaring. You’re trembling and blushing. You hate it, though, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Don’t you? If I ask you a question, I expect an answer, Kyrie.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s okay. Hate it all you want. Fight it. Try as you might, you can’t help it. I own you, Kyrie St. Claire. And soon you’ll come to accept this.”

  “Never.”

  “Ah. Rebellion. There’s your spirit. That temper of yours, Kyrie. It’s gotten you in so much trouble, hasn’t it?” He sounded amused. “Mr. Edwards is still recovering, you know. You smashed his nose into smithereens.”

  I reeled. “You…you know about that?”

  “Of course I know about it. I know everything about you.” He stepped away, his voice slightly distant. I heard the tinkle of glass, of pouring liquid. He took my hand in his, pressed a tumbler into my palm, lifted it to my lips. “Drink.”

  I touched the liquid to my lips, tasted the fiery burn of expensive Scotch. “Eeew. No.”

  “Drink.” His voice was a whip. “I dislike repeating myself.”

  I drank. My esophagus was coated in lava, and then it hit my stomach like a hundredweight of bricks. My blood turned to fire, and my head spun. “God, that’s gross.” But, even as I said it, I felt my body going light, heated by the Scotch and lifted up as if I were a hot-air balloon. I drank again, and it wasn’t as bad.

  “Yet you drink again, of your own volition.” I heard a smile in his voice. “You drinking the Scotch is a very apropos metaphor for the way you react to me. You don’t like it at first, but it burns away your resistance, and soon you find yourself going back for more.”

  I drank again, a small sip, and the lava on my throat, in my stomach, the fire in my blood, wasn’t so bad. It emboldened me. “You said you don’t expect me to pay you back monetarily. Yet you said you won’t have sex with me unless I ask for it. So what do want from me?”

  “Merely yourself. Your utter and immediate obedience in all things. Your life.” I heard him swallow. “And here’s why you’ll find yourself obeying. Beyond the heat in your loins that you feel, and the way you react to the mere sound of my voice…you’ll obey because you know the hold I have on you. I will continue to provide for your mother and brother as long as you obey me. They will be very well cared for, in all things. As will you. The kind of treatment you received on the jet is a mere glimpse of the life I will provide for you.”

  “And if I don’t comply with your every whim?”

  “I will send you home. You would sign an ironclad nondisclosure agreement, and you’d be free to go.”

  “Just like that?” I put all the sarcasm and bitterness I possessed into those three words.

  “Just like that.”

  “And I wouldn’t have to repay you?”

  “No.” He paused for effect. “Except, you wouldn’t receive another dime. And you still have a very long way to go to finish your degree. The jobs you’re trained for right now will never offer the funds necessary for you to take care of your mother and brother. And even if you could stay afloat long enough to finish your degree, and get a job in your field, do you really think a social worker could ever make enough money to pay the kinds of bills you’ve got hanging over your head?”

  “I’d make it work.”

  “Yes, Kyrie. I do believe you’d kill yourself trying.” He paused to sip his drink again, and I took another drink as well. “You could take that route. And you might be able to make it work. But…your choices are limited. Very limited. How long do you think it’d be before you’d end up in a strip club? Before you’d sell your body? Before you’d start doing what that vile pig Edwards asked of you, simply to keep a job you so desperately need?”

  I couldn’t answer. He was all too right. I hung my head in defeat, held out the glass, unable to grip it any longer. He took it from me.

  “Exactly.” His voice moved away, and I heard glass on wood as he set my tumbler down. “Or you can stay here with me. Play along with my little game, and have all your bills paid.”

  “How is this different from prostitution?” I demanded, my voice shaking. “I’m selling my life, my body, my fucking soul to you, to pay the bills.”

  “If you wish to consider it prostitution, then I suppose that case could be made. But it isn’t. Consider it instead to be…commerce.”

  “Commerce? A deal?”

  “Exactly. A deal. But this is not a sexual deal, Kyrie. I might endeavor to stimulate your senses, to turn you on. I do not deny that I’m attracted to you, and that I have been for a long time. But I am not attempting to coerce you into having sex with me. I will persuade you, one step at a time. And that, Kyrie, is no different from what goes on in bars and clubs every night. No different from what you yourself have engaged in.”

  He was near me again, circling me, sipping and speaking. “You go to a bar, you spot a likely young gentleman, attractive, well-dressed, a certain gleam in his eye, a swagger to his gait. You let him strike up a conversation. He buys you a drink or two or three. Maybe you give him your cell phone number, or maybe you simply return with him to his place that very night.

  “Or maybe you go on a few dates with him first. You’d flirt, ask a few questions, determine whether or not his personality jives with your own in a satisfactory way—whether the initial attraction remains. Eventually, if all the conditions are met, you’d end up in bed with him. And, perhaps, this would last for a few weeks, or even a few months.”

  He paused, and here his voice seemed almost bitter, sounding ever more like a derogatory lecture. “All this is predicated upon a set of societally agreed-upon unspoken agreements. You are engaging in social commerce. He buys you drinks, buys you dinner. Flowers, perhaps. If he’s particularly well mannered, he’ll open doors and pull out your chair. But you are acting out a game. If he were to step beyond the parameters of this prearranged code, you would reject him outright, most likely. If he simply walked up to you and said he wanted to take you home and fuck you, how would you respond?”

  I swallowed, hard. “I’d—I’d probably be pissed,” I admitted. “That’s…crass.”

  “Precisely.” His voice softened, his breath once more in my ear. “It’s not that you would be opposed to him taking you home an
d fucking you. Oh, no. That, after all, is precisely the goal of the game our fair society has set up: to fuck. But the manner of one’s approach makes all the difference, no?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much.”

  “Tell me, Kyrie. What’s the difference between sex, making love, and fucking?”

  “It’s…subjective, I think. The difference in definition varies from person to person.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I’m asking you what you think.”

  I blinked behind the blindfold, an instinctive reaction to thinking. “Could I…sit down? Please?”

  “Of course. How rude of me to leave us standing here in the foyer.” He took my hand. “Come.”

  “Wait…the blindfold…aren’t you going to take it off?” I pulled back against his hand, reached for the fabric covering my eyes.

  Strong fingers imprisoned my wrist, stopping me gently but firmly. “No. Not yet. Not for a while, I think.”

  “What? What do you mean, not for a while?” I jerked my hand free, turned to where I thought he was standing.

  “I mean that I’ll remove the blindfold when I’m ready to do so. I am not yet ready for you to see me. You have four other senses, Kyrie. Focus on those.”

  “Are you, like, ugly or disfigured or something?”

  He laughed, and the sound was loud with raw amusement. “How very blunt of you, Kyrie!” He took my hand once more, and I couldn’t help a shiver running through me. His hand was huge, swallowing mine completely. Rough with calluses, yet gentle. “No, I do not believe I am thought ugly by those who have seen me. And I am not in any way disfigured. I am not particularly old, or young.”

  “Then why can’t I see you?”

  “Because this is part of my game. It pleases me. I like the way the blindfold looks on you. I like the control it gives me, how dependent on me it makes you. You could, at any time, remove it. You are not shackled, after all. But you have not taken it off, have you? Nor will you. You’ll leave it. You want to give control over to me, Kyrie. You’re afraid to do so, but you want to.”

  “I am afraid.” Admitting it out loud, to him, made my fear more real yet, strangely, less panicked.

  “I know. And that’s okay. Fear makes us cautious. I don’t expect immediate total compliance. I don’t expect you to trust me quite yet. I have to earn that. And I will. You’ll learn to trust me. And when I feel you have learned to trust me, and when I feel that I in turn can trust you, that’s when the blindfold will come off.”

  I felt his hands lightly grip my shoulders from behind, and I let him guide me into a walk. He directed me for what felt like a hundred steps, and then he turned me to the left, and we walked another hundred steps. He turned me around and nudged me backward until I felt a couch or a chair touch the backs of my knees. I sat down into a deep leather chair, and sighed in relief as my fear and nerve-weakened legs relaxed. His fingers lifted one of my ankles, and I felt an ottoman slide underneath my feet. I sank deeper into the chair, finding it to be immensely comfortable.

  “A moment, if you will,” he said, and I heard his footsteps recede, back in the direction from which we’d come. He returned in a few moments, “Here, Kyrie. Your Scotch.”

  I held out my hand, and he pressed the cold glass tumbler into my palm. I lifted the rim to my lips, sipped the thick burning heat, and this time I relished the taste.

  “Now, where were we?” I heard his voice coming from off to my left.

  I turned in the chair slightly so I was facing him. I realized even as I did so, how arbitrary that convention was. Facing a person when you spoke was a habit borne of eye contact. I was blindfolded, and thus facing him was pointless. I stayed as I was, though.

  “You were asking me to define the difference between sex, making love, and fucking.”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  I thought for several moments, composing my response. My “host” was an intelligent, articulate man, speaking as if he’d been very well educated. He had a hint of an accent, from somewhere in the United Kingdom, I thought, although it was faint enough that I couldn’t place it any more precisely. I had a feeling he would appreciate a considered response to his question. Why I cared whether he appreciated my response was, again, something I didn’t care to examine. I did, though, and I couldn’t deny it.

  “It’s about emotion, I think,” I said. “Sex is the clinical term, the context-less word for the act. It means nothing else, holds no meaning or importance beyond the mere physical act of engaging in sexual intercourse. Making love is…well, obviously it’s about love. It’s about the expression of the way you feel about someone. Fucking is…I guess I think about it as something crude. Rough and empty of emotion. Hard and fast. Although I guess it doesn’t have to be rough or hard, just…devoid of emotional exchange. You’d fuck someone you just met at the bar. You wouldn’t, and I think couldn’t, make love with someone you just met. You have to know them, understand them, care about them, actually love them to make love, whereas you can fuck anyone, anytime, no emotions or connections required.”

  “And have you personally experienced both?”

  I hesitated to answer. “I…I don’t know. I think so? I thought I was in love once. I thought what we had meant something. I’ve had sex, obviously. I’ve hooked up with guys I didn’t know super well, but I’ve never slept with any of them right away. It would have to be after a few dates. I guess I’ve got a three-date minimum, you could say. It’s not something I’ve ever laid out in so many words, but, now that I’m thinking about it, it’s true. I’ve never had sex with anyone I hadn’t been on at least three dates with—at a minimum. And I don’t always sleep with guys I’m dating.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Kyrie.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, okay? I guess, yes, I have experienced both. With Matt it was sweet and meaningful, although we never said ‘I love you.’ But the other guys I’ve slept with, it’s only been about the act, really, so according to my own definition, that would have been fucking.” I was shocked to hear myself answering, so openly, such deeply personal questions. I wasn’t usually so forthcoming. “What about you? Have you experienced both?”

  My question was met with a long moment of silence. I wasn’t sure he’d answer. But then he did. His voice was slow, as if he was thinking about his words as he spoke them. “No, I must confess I have not. I have never made love before. I have only fucked, if we’re using your definitions.”

  “What is your definition, then?”

  Another long silence, and the slowly spoken response. “There has only ever been the act, for me. It has always been devoid of meaning, devoid of emotion. That is by design, however. No one has ever meant anything to me. I have never let them, or wanted them to. My sexual partners have always been very carefully chosen for their willingness to engage in sex with me upon my terms. By contract, actually. Not a financial contract, as I have never paid for sex, but a contract of silence. Meaning, they can never speak of their time with me.”

  “You’re very private, then.”

  He actually laughed. “Oh, Kyrie. You have no idea how private I am.”

  “Why?” The question came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  Again the long, thoughtful silence. “The only reason I’m answering your questions is to put you at ease. Normally, I wouldn’t respond to such interrogatory conversational gambits.” He sighed. “I do not trust, Kyrie. Not anyone. Not ever. I do not rely on anyone. I do not allow anyone past my walls. And by walls, I mean the literal walls of my home, and the metaphorical walls around my heart and my life.”

  “You’ve been hurt.” Again the words fell from my lips before I could stop them.

  “Haven’t we all?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I took a long sip of my drink. “I still don’t understand what you want from me. Why we’re playing this game.”

  “All I want from you, Kyrie, is you.”

  “Then why…like this?” I gestured to the
blindfold, and then away, meaning the way I was picked up. “Why the checks? Why the hired goon saying he was ‘collecting’ me? Why the blindfold and the…the mysteriousness? Why? If you wanted me, why not simply arrange to meet me?”

  “Would you have come?” I heard leather creak, and his voice sounded nominally closer, as if he’d leaned forward. “If I’d arranged so that we ‘accidentally’” —I heard the quotes around the word— “met, would you have believed me? What would I have said? ‘Oh, hello, Kyrie, I’m the guy who’s been sending you the checks.’ I think not. And if I’d arranged a meeting and gotten to know you under what would be considered normal circumstances, and then eventually revealed that I was the one who’d sent the checks, would you not have been upset that I’d kept the truth from you? That knowledge would’ve tainted whatever relationship we’d established up to that point. Am I wrong?”

  I sighed. “I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  “I am a very honest man, Kyrie. Perhaps you’ve noticed that. I will say the exact truth. I wish all my interactions to be truthful. This way, the truth has been established from the outset.”

  “Okay, I get that. But why the secrecy, then?”

  “As I said, I am a private man, Kyrie. Few people meet me in person. You are, as a matter of fact, one of only four people who have ever been past those doors. Harris, whom you met; my housekeeper, Eliza; and Robert, the second-in-command of my business affairs. And now you. I am not ready to reveal myself to you, for my own privacy and sense of security. And also…” He trailed off, as if considering carefully his next words. “Also…I am keeping a secret from you, Kyrie. A very deep, very dark secret. One that affects us both, and one that will change the very fabric of our relationship. And I am not ready to reveal that to you, either. When I tell you this secret of mine, you will very likely walk away, and I will have to let you. Seeing as I’ve just gotten you here, I’m not ready for that to happen. I’m telling you this much now so you’re aware that I’m keeping something from you.”