2
INTRODUCTIONS; THE ARRANGEMENT
I gulped, probably loud enough for him to hear. “If you won’t tell me your name, what do I call you?”
He chuckled, and the sound of his laughter caressed me, mocked me. “You and I are completely alone, Kyrie. If you speak, it can only be to me. You need call me nothing.”
“So I don’t have to call you ‘sir,’ or ‘master’?”
His voice went sharp and cold. “I am not a dominant, Kyrie. You are not my slave, nor my submissive.” He moved, now standing behind me. He was close to my ear, and I felt him at my spine. “I own you, but you will submit to me willingly.”
“I will?”
“You will.”
“Why?” I wanted to turn, to touch him, to take the blindfold off. Something prevented me, and I didn’t dare examine what it was.
“For the period of one year, I mailed you checks for ten thousand dollars, one every month. You cashed and used them all. You spent my money, Kyrie. You lived on my generosity. My reasons for this will remain a mystery to you…for now. But you are in my debt. You would have been homeless and starving without me. Your mother would not have received the care she needs without me. Your brother would not have a home or an education without me. So…I don’t just own you, Kyrie. I own your mother, and your brother. They are both wholly dependent on you, and thus, on me.”
I swallowed again, blinked away tears. “What do you want from me?” The words were barely a whisper, almost inaudible.
“Kyrie…Kyrie…” His voice soothed and stroked me, deep and soft with tenderness. This man, his voice…it was magical, so expressive, so changeable. The power in his voice terrified me. He could manipulate me with the mere tone of his voice, frighten or calm me with mere words. “You need not be so afraid. Allow me to reassure you somewhat. As I said, I am not a dominant. I do not derive pleasure from inflicting or receiving pain. I derive pleasure from control, from obedience. You will do what I say, comply to my wishes but, I promise you, you will always find my wishes to be for your own pleasure, and for your own benefit. I will never hurt you. Never. I will not strike you. I will not bind you, or if I do, it will be your own compliance that keeps you bound.”
“Why?” I blinked behind the blindfold, squeezed my eyes shut, and felt a tear trickle down my cheek. “Why me? Why will I obey you?”
Obey. I hated that word. I’d never been obedient. I didn’t always do what I was told—or at least not easily. Even as a little girl, my parents learned it was best to ask me nicely rather than command me. Forcing me into something with brutish commands would bring out the sharp side of my very short and very explosive temper. This man, unseen, unnamed, expected me to obey him. Felt that he owned me.
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 and 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.”
“But you won’t tell me what it is?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid to, Kyrie. Because I’ve been waiting a very long time to bring you into my life, and now that I have you, I’m jealous of the time I get to spend with you.”
Something in that statement unnerved me. But what, though? Oh, yeah. “Clearly I’ve never met you. But yet you say you’ve been planning for this for a long time. Which means you’ve been stalking me?”
He sighed. “Essentially, yes. Watching. Waiting. Protecting.”
“Protecting?”
“Yes, Kyrie. Protecting. I’ve kept an eye on you. How do you think I knew to send the check when I did?” I heard him shift, a pause, and then the sound of an object being set upon a table. A few moments later, a door opened somewhere, and footsteps approached us. “Harris.”
“Hello, Harris,” I said.
“Good evening, Miss St. Claire.”
“Harris here has been the eye I’ve kept on you. His primary instruction was to watch, unobserved, and never, ever make any contact, or allow you to ever feel watched. Did he succeed in that?”
I thought long and hard. “Yes, I suppose so. There have been a few times where I had a vague sense of being watched, but mostly, no.”
“I have a file on you, several flash drives full of photographs. And let me reassure you that you’ve never been photographed in any way that would violate your privacy. There are no nude or revealing photographs, no shots of you in private with any of your boyfriends or…liaisons…over the years. Just enough to inform, to know.”
“To know what? And why?”
“To know you. To be sure that you’re okay, safe, provided for.”
“But I wasn’t provided for. I wasn’t safe.”
“Yes, you were. You never starved. You were never in any direct danger. I only interfered when I felt there were no options left. And there were a couple of times Harris acted to keep you safe, although you may not be aware that anything even happened. He is, after all, very good at his job.” He paused, and then continued. “Harris?”
Harris spoke. “Miss St. Claire. Do you remember St. Patrick’s Day two years ago? You and your friend Layla went out drinking. You two drank from noon to well past two in the morning. You were both extremely intoxicated.”
I blink behind the blindfold, thinking back. “Yes. I remember.”
“You were wearing a lime-green T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Layla was wearing a…well, I suppose one could call it a dress. It was…rather short.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his description. Layla’s dress had barely covered her ass, and if she moved wrong, the bottom of her ass did actually show beneath the hemline. Then the fact that he knew exactly what we were wearing that night sank in, and I started shaking. “You were…there?”
“I was always there, Miss St. Claire. Out of sight, but there. You and Layla were too drunk to even walk straight that night, but there were no cabs, and the bus didn’t go where you needed to go. So you ended up walking—and I use the term ‘walking’ very loosely—all the way home. Seventeen blocks. At two in the morning, in downtown Detroit.”
I shuddered as I remembered that night. We had been living together then, in a shitty-ass apartment downtown. We rarely ventured outside past dark and never, ever, alone. That night, though, we did. And we’d thought, the next day, that it was a miracle we’d made it home alive. Now I was starting to think it was less a miracle than Harris’s unseen protection.
“That was an insanely bad decision on our part,” I said. “We woke up the next day amazed that we’d made it home intact.”
“You shouldn’t have,” he said. “You almost didn’t.”
“What?” I took a sip of Scotch, for courage. “What do you mean?”
Harris answered. “Layla was so drunk you basically carried her the whole way. She couldn’t stand up, couldn’t walk, couldn’t even speak. You weren’t much better off, but you managed somehow. I’ll never know how you did it. You actually puked a few times, while you were dragging your blacked-out friend.” Harris’s voice was bemused. “You remember anything from that walk home? Any sense of danger? Anyone who might have proved to be a threat?”
I thought hard. That walk home was a blur in my mind. I remembered very little, just a few random thoughts: how heavy Layla had been, how tired I was, how drunk, how badly I wanted to be home. I remembered trying not to think how much farther we had to go, focusing on one sidewalk square at a time, ignoring the ache in my legs and in my back. It was as Harris had said; I had essentially carried Layla home. “I have a vague recollection of…three men. At a street corner. They were shouting at us, I think. In some other language. Spanish, maybe? I think…I think they followed us for a while. I remember…I remember trying to walk faster, but Layla was so heavy, all but unconscious.”
“Yes. Those three. They did follow you, in fact. For three blocks. And they were indeed shouting at you in Spanish. The things they said…it’s good you don’t speak Spanish. They were saying vile things to you. I won’t repeat them, but it was disgusting.”
“Would they have hurt us?” I had to ask.
“Oh, yes. They fully intended to rape and kill you both.” Harris’s voice went cold, hard. “That’s what they were saying. Telling you exactly what they intended to do. Their plan was to follow you home, wait till you got your front door open, and then push you both in. Rape you, kill you, and leave you in your own apartment. No one would have ever known what happened, and they would never have been caught. There were no cameras in your building. No one knew you’d left the bar — no one was expecting you. It would have been days before anyone found your bodies.”
I felt sick then. “They…how—what stopped them?”
Harris didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was arctic and dark. “Me. Once I realized their intentions, I…confronted them.” He hesitated again.
“By ‘confront’ I assume you mean you…fought them?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I couldn’t help asking.
He answered. “Harris doesn’t ‘fight.’”
“Then what?” I asked.
Harris cleared his throat. “They were scum. I do not take lives lightly, but I enjoyed ending those three. I did the human race a favor when I slit their filthy fucking throats.”
A wave of dizziness washed over me. “You—you killed them?”
“Quickly, and easily. Don’t feel any guilt for their lives, Miss St. Claire. They intended to take turns raping you two for hours. They were evil, sadistic creatures with not even a speck of humanity in them. I showed them the mercy of quick deaths.”
“But you…you killed them. For me.”
“Yes. I did. And I would do so again.”
“Then there was also the matter of a potential mugger, just this past month,” he said. “Harris made sure the mugger never reached his intended point of ambush. That particular individual was merely…persuaded, shall we say, to give up a life of crime.”
“Indeed,” Harris said. “I can be rather persuasive.”
I had a hard time breathing suddenly. “What—what else did you do on my behalf?”
He answered. “Only one other matter required intervention. The last gentleman you dated. Steven Higgins.”
“Steven? What did you do to Steven?”
“The Steven you knew, and the real Steven…they were not the same person.” He paused, and I heard the tone of his voice shift to address Harris. “You may go. Thank you.”
“Good night, sir. Miss. St. Claire.” I heard Harris’s footsteps recede, and the front door close.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I dated Steven for six months. He was really great.”
“Steven Higgins is a vile, vulgar, abusive animal with disgusting predilections.” His voice was thick with contempt.
“Wh—what do you mean?”
“He is a predator, and the worst kind of abuser. He hides his true self well, hides it until he’s sure his prey is too deeply ensnared and too weak to get away.”
“I—I don’t understand. Steven never laid a finger on me. Not—not that way, at least. He was never anything less than a perfect gentleman.”
“As I said, he is predator. A hunter. He spent six months with you, assessing you, drawing you in, making you think he was kind and innocent and…vanilla. He was a BDSM dominant, Kyrie. Although those who practice BDSM would take great offense to labeling a monster like Steven as a dom. What Steven enjoyed was not BDSM, but merely torture. I have photographic evidence, police reports. I’ve put the file in your bedroom for you to look over later, as I realize my word won’t be enough to convince you of the veracity of my claims.” He sighed. “I couldn’t let Steven get his hands on you, Kyrie. He breaks women. Ruins them. Destroys them. I suspect he’s responsible for at least one death, and I further suspect his taste for blood and inflicting pain will only grow.”
“Taste for blood? He’s…killed people?”
“Yes. I don’t have hard proof as to the latter claim, but considering the way his victims are left when he’s done with them, I find it hard to believe he’s never gone as far as killing someone, if only by accident.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t—I don’t understand. What is it he likes?”
“It starts innocently enough. Rough sex. A few slaps here and there, under the guise of spanking. But it grows worse as time goes on. It is much like the way a lobster is boiled, really. The water grows hotter and hotter, and the poor creature never even realizes what’s happening until it’s too late. The girls he chooses as prey grow fond of Steven, of his nice-guy act. They enjoy sex with him, initially. They don’t mind his propensity for a few rough moments. They tolerate the increasing violence of his attentions. And then he moves to bondage. Ties them up. Binds them to the bed. Has his way with them. Again, it seems innocent enough, if you like such things. He establishes a safe-word, follows all the correct protocols for those who engage in the world of rough sex. But eventually the safe-word has no effect. He won’t stop. His slaps turn to punches. His gentle whipping loses its gentility. His rough sex turns to violence. It becomes rape. Torture. Beatings that last for hours, leaving his victim bloody and helpless, and then he rapes them to his satisfaction, which is its own torture. I have firsthand reports from his victims for you to read.”
I feel myself shaking all over. “I—are you for real?”
“Yes, I am. As I said, I know you won’t trust my word, so when I take you to your room, you will have an opportunity to peruse the file I had Harris put together.”
“What did you do to Steven?”
“I merely had Harris convince him that it would be in his best interests to vanish from your life. Permanently.”
“You didn’t have him killed?”
“No. He hadn’t done anything to you, so I couldn’t justify it. I would have liked to, however. He is a filthy, vile creature. I did report him to the authorities, however, so hopefully he will be stopped before he hurts anyone else.”
I thought back to my time dating Steven. I wasn’t one to jump right into the sack with a guy I was dating, so we didn’t sleep together until we’d been dating for nearly two months. He’d never pushed, simply waited patiently until I indicated I was ready. He was unfailingly polite, always a gentleman, paying for meals and opening doors, buying me flowers, taking me on some of the most romantic dates I’d ever been on. When we finally did sleep together, it was…nice. Fairly plain, actually. Not spectacular, but not bad. Just average. He seemed to like missionary sex, at the beginning. And then, after a month of sleeping together, we started trying other positions. And…yes, he did spank me a few times. Not hard, but it startled me, coming out of nowhere. I hadn’t minded it, actually. I’d felt weird about not minding it, and had spent a drunken night talking with Layla and wondering if I was a freak and just didn’t know it. She’d assured me that not losing my shit over one little smack on the ass didn’t make me a freak. From then on, things with Steven heated up a bit. It had seemed at the time as if he was merely turning up the heat, as if we were discovering things together. That’s how it had felt to me.
But now, with what I was being told, I wasn’t so sure. Innocent, plain vanilla missionary sex…a little smack on the ass…and then the sex got rougher, more inventive…and I’d gone along with it all. Nothing untoward had happened. He’d never hit me on the face, never tried to choke me or tie me up, but I could easily see how that could have happened. If Steven had suggested tying my hands up, just to try it, I would have gone along. I knew that for a fact. And then I would have been totally at his mercy, because I’d started trusting him.
“You’re not lying, are you?” I asked, my voice shaky.
“I never lie. Never. And, furthermore, I have no reason to exaggerate or invent such things. I can see that you’re beginning to believe me.”
I shrugged. “It makes a scary kind of sense. The slow progression of things, it was exactly as you said.” I thought back to the way things had ended and that, too, fit with what I’d been told. “He just vanished. I was really hurt, actually. Between one date and the next, he just…vanished. No call, not even a text. Like, I thought he’d just…left, without even dumping me.”
“It was the safest thing, Kyrie. I’m sorry that his disappearance caused you pain, but it was that or allow you to suffer at his hands, and that was simply not an option. I will not allow you to come to harm, Kyrie. Not ever. I may not be able to prevent you from suffering emotional pain, but believe me when I say that I would if such was within my power.”
The sincerity in his voice surprised me. It sounded for all the world as if he really did care, as if he felt deep and powerful emotions toward me. But yet he wouldn’t even tell me his name, or let me see him. It didn’t make any sense, and it scared me. Was he unstable? There was no way to know, and I’d put myself right his hands.
“If you’re willing to believe me, I’d rather not let you see the file,” he said. “It’s…very graphic, and very disturbing.”
“I still want to see it,” I said.
“Are you sure?” He sounded closer, but I hadn’t heard or felt him move. “It’s not pretty, what he does to women. And the most awful part is that he gets away with it. If a girl were to report him, he’d just say it was consensual, because…it was. At the beginning. But by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. But it becomes their word against his, and the girls are often too traumatized, too frightened of him to say anything.”
“I want to see it. I also want to see the information you have on me.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise. It wouldn’t do you any good. It’s nothing but basic information. Photographs of you going about your day. Financial information, medical information, university records.”
“Why do you need all that information on me?”
“Because I wish to know who you are.”
“And who am I?”
“Hmm…” He sighed, the sound of someone gathering his thoughts. “You are Kyrie Abigail St. Claire. Twenty-six years old. Daughter of Katharine Eileen Tilson St. Claire and Nicholas Calvin St. Claire. Your mother suffers from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and is currently residing at the Ravenwood Care Home in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Your father is deceased. You have one brother, Calvin Matthew St. Claire, who is currently attending Columbia College in Chicago. Your best friend is Layla Irene Campari. You have one living set of grandparents, maternal, living in Fort Lauderdale. No other immediate family. You have a bachelor’s degree in social work from Wayne State University, and are currently pursuing your master’s. You are five foot seven, and your weight fluctuates between one-thirty and one-forty. Blonde hair, blue eyes. No medical conditions. You had your appendix out when you were sixteen. You have been supporting your mother and brother on your own since your father’s passing seven years ago. Your favorite color is lavender. You have a slight addiction to black cherry Chobani yogurt, and you have a tendency to overindulge in alcohol when stressed. You have a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do, which you began pursuing at the age of eleven. You have had five sexual partners. No pregnancies, abortions, or miscarriages. You have been on birth control since you were eighteen. You hate broccoli, and your favorite dish is chicken Parmesan.” A pause, and then he cleared his throat. “What else? Oh, yes. You were arrested for shoplifting when you were fourteen, convicted, and served one hundred hours of community service. I believe that’s everything.”
I couldn’t breathe. Literally. My chest seized, my lungs froze. My heart stopped. I coughed and tried to suck air into my lungs, and failed. The glass of Scotch tumbled from my hand and fell to the floor with a crash. I clawed at my throat, at the blindfold, at my chest.
I felt a big warm hand on the nape of my neck, strong and implacable, forcing my head down between my knees. “Breathe, Kyrie. Breathe in.” His voice, his honey-thick, well-deep voice was at my ear, murmuring, comforting. Soothing. I opened my throat and forced air into my lungs, dragging in huge gulps of air, breathing out, in, out. His hand remained on the nape of my neck, a gentle touch. “That’s good. Keep breathing. It’s all right. It’s all right.”
“You—you know fucking everything about me.” I jerked away from him, stumbled to my feet, and lurched away. I felt his hand catch my waist and pull me forward, just as I felt my heels and the backs of my knees hit a table. “You know—fuck—you know everything. Every goddamned thing there is to know. How many sexual partners I’ve had? Jesus. Jesus. I’m gonna be sick….”
Glass crunched underfoot. I heard a door open, and then the tinkling of the broken glass being swept up.
“Thank you, Eliza,” he said, his voice soft.
“Of course, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?” Eliza’s voice sounded on the older side, a touch of an accent, Hispanic, possibly.
“No, that will be all for now. Dinner is ready, yes?”
“Not just yet, sir. About half an hour.”
“Very good, Eliza. Thank you.” Footsteps receded, a door closed, and I sensed we were alone once more. “Are you all right, Kyrie?”
I stepped out of his touch, straightened my spine, forcing my breathing to even out. “I suppose. I could use a few minutes alone.”
“Of course. This way, please.” His hand on the small of my back pulled me into a walk, guiding me forward. “I’ll show you to your rooms. You will have a moment to refresh yourself, and then we will dine.”
“And I’m supposed to do all this blindfolded?” I asked.
“In your own quarters you will be allowed to remove the blindfold. And if we are not together, while I am working, for instance, you will have the freedom to roam my home at will. My private apartments are inaccessible to you, so you need not fear running into me by accident.” He nudged me around a corner, and I heard our footsteps echoing in what sounded like a huge hallway. “As I have stated, you are not a prisoner. The front door is unlocked. The elevator will take you to the garage, and from there to the street, where you will find a taxi readily available. I will even arrange a flight back to Detroit, if you wish. If you choose to leave, your belongings will be brought to you, along with the nondisclosure contract. You are free to go at any time. You are free to remove the blindfold at any time. But if you do, our agreement is voided, and my financial support will cease immediately. You would have, at most, three months before your various debts caught up with you and your situation became untenable. I urge you to consider wisely, Kyrie. I give you my word of honor that you will not be in any way mistreated, harmed, or forced to do anything to compromise your morals, values, or physical safety.”
I wobbled on my three-inch heels, unnerved, still shaky with fear and confusion and disorientation. “This is such a fucked-up situation. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I suppose this is a rather unusual situation.” His voice was rife with amusement. His hand curled around my waist, halting me. “We’ve reached your quarters. I will send you in, and then you may remove the blindfold. Please leave the dress on, however. You look incredible in it. Eliza will bring you to the dining room in thirty minutes.”
A door handle opened, and I was nudged forward. His hand rested on my lower back, his palm against my spine and his fingers splayed possessively on my side. As soon as I realized how bizarrely comforting and familiar his touch felt, he withdrew his hand, and I was left in an even greater state of emotional confusion.
“I’ll see you soon, Kyrie.” Warm lips brushed my cheek, his breath Scotch-laced and hot. I shivered at the feel of his lips on my cheek, not even an inch from my mouth.
“Yeah,” I said, letting every last shred of sarcasm I possessed paint my voice. “You’ll see me.”
He only laughed, a rumbling chuckle. “It won’t be for long, Kyrie. I promise. Just try to trust me, and the blindfold will come off.”
“Trust you? How the hell am I supposed to trust you? I don’t know even know your name! I’m blindfolded!”
“You have to give yourself over to me. It will be frightening, I know. It goes against nature, especially for one who has been through what you have. I know this. I know the enormity of what I ask. But I wouldn’t ask it of you if I didn’t think you capable of it. And I wouldn’t ask it of you if it wasn’t necessary, for me.” His finger trailed along my cheek. “Hear this, Kyrie: As you learn to trust me, as you give yourself to me, so will I learn to trust you, and give you myself.”
That shook me to the core. I searched for something to say, for some way to react, but I had nothing. No words, no knowledge of what to say, what to feel, what I even thought of his statement.
“Enough of this for now. Refresh yourself, and join me for dinner. There is an intercom on the wall just to your left. Press the green button and ask for Eliza if you find you’re ready before thirty minutes have passed.”
“Can I call Layla?”
A brief hesitation. “Yes, I don’t see why not. Be discreet, please.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, for now.” I heard the door close and latch, and his footsteps recede.
I stood in place for a moment, and then reached up and removed the blindfold. I turned in place, examining my surroundings. And, once again, my breath was stolen. The room itself was mammoth, big enough to fit my entire apartment in, with room to spare. And one entire wall, from floor to ceiling, was glass. I drifted over to the windows, blinking, gasping in awe. Manhattan lay spread out before me in unrivaled beauty, a myriad of towers and lights and cross-hatched streets, yellow headlights and red taillights, cycling stoplights…never had I seen anything like it. For several minutes I could only stand with my nose to the glass, staring out at the city. How many floors up was I? Very many, clearly. I couldn’t recall the inside of the elevator, except for a memory of polished chrome and dark wood. I thought hard, and realized there had only been two buttons, one for the top, and one for the garage level. But, judging by the view beneath me, we were at least fifty stories up. There were several skyscrapers nearby, and I could see the tops of all of them.
Finally I tore myself from the view and examined the rest of the room. Thick, plush, cream carpeting, a twelve-foot ceiling. On one side of the room was an accent wall, painted a dark maroon and decorated with a very high-end reproduction of Vermeer’s The Girl With the Pearl Earring. There was a waist-high pedestal beneath the painting that held a vase, which looked to be some kind of priceless work of art. The other walls were a neutral tan color with dark wood-paneled wainscoting. There was a dark brown leather couch, love seat, and chair in the center of the room, with a glass-topped coffee table. Opposite the accent wall was a wet bar and a small table with two high chairs, and an enormous bookshelf containing all of my own personal books, DVDs, and CDs, plus a vast selection of fiction from all genres. Beside the bookshelf was an elaborate music system, the kind of high-end technology that was custom-made for each client.
On the coffee table was a manila file folder. Steven. I sat down on the edge of the couch and pulled the folder onto my lap. I hesitated, and then flipped it open. Front and center was a close-up photograph of Steven, taken with a zoom lens from a distance. The look in his eyes was…feral. Evil. Scary. Nothing like the gentle way he’d always looked at me…at first. The next page was a dossier, personal information on Steven. I perused it briefly, then flipped the page. I nearly dropped the folder, so surprised was I at the next photograph. It was of a young woman with blonde hair, but that was about all I could make out of her features. She’d been beaten bloody, unrecognizable. I had to choke back my own horror. The next photograph was of her as well, of her body. She was naked in the photograph, and she had a terrifying array of welts, bruises, contusions where she’d been actually whipped, it looked like, the kind of wound you’d see in a movie showing someone being flogged. The wounds covered her from head to foot, on her arms, legs, back, thighs, stomach, breasts….
There was a whole series of photographs of different women with similar injuries. All of them were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, similar in age to me, similar even in body shape. There were medical reports on each of them, and even a few copies of police reports. Those were the most terrifying. They read exactly how I would have described the beginning of my relationship with Steven—how I had described it. Except with them, it didn’t stop where mine had. The women described how he’d talked them into things gradually, eventually getting them to agree to be tied up, handcuffed, bound in some way, and that was when he began to truly hurt them, starting with little slaps and moving to punches, kicks, using whips and canes, all sorts of awful things. I couldn’t finish reading after learning about one girl who had been permanently blinded in one eye.
I closed the file and set it on the coffee table, hands shaking, stomach roiling. He’d been telling the truth. If not for him, for his interference—or help, more accurately—which I’d never even known about, I’d be another series of photographs in this file.
It took a long time before I was able to stand up and finish my exploration of my rooms.
I moved through the doorway beside the wet bar and found myself in a bedroom, which also featured a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass. There was a four-poster bed with a full canopy, the same thick cream carpeting under foot, an enormous armoire, and a sitting area near the glass wall, two simple but comfortable-looking chairs and a small table, the kind of furniture that is understated but insanely expensive. There was no television, which was fine by me, as I wasn’t much for TV. I opened the armoire and found it to be full of my underclothes, yoga pants, and sleep tees. A single doorway opposite the glass wall led to a marble and tile palace of a bathroom. The glass wall theme continued, with a jetted soaking tub set into a pedestal near the window, a sprawling vanity already stocked with all my makeup, my brushes, my hair dyer. There was a tiled shower with an incredible-looking rainfall showerhead, also stocked with all my shower supplies from home.
Another door led to a walk-in closet bigger than my bedroom, bathroom, and living room combined. The walk-in closet was so big it had its own sitting area: an island with shelves containing all of my shoes and purses, a three-way full-length mirror, and a glass-fronted case containing all of my jewelry. My clothes were all hung up together, taking up one tiny little corner of the closet. The rest of the space? Stocked with dresses, skirts, blouses, jeans…all brand-new, with tags, in my size, from all of the most expensive stores in the world. The scariest part? They were all my style. I’d gladly wear every single item in this closet.
I had to sit down as I considered the implications of what I was seeing.
He’d moved me in. Everything I owned was here. He knew my sense of fashion, which kinds of dresses and tops I’d like, and I’d seen an entire section of the closet devoted to lingerie. I’d not examined the lingerie, but I assumed it was all in my size. I was close to hyperventilating again.
It took serious effort, but I got control of my breathing, calmed my ever-present panic enough to function, and went back into the bathroom. I wanted the taste of Scotch out of my mouth. I found my toothbrush in a little cup, along with my own half-used tube of Crest toothpaste, the end crimped and rolled partway up. It was beyond bizarre to see my toothpaste and toothbrush here, in this bathroom. I pushed away my emotions as best I could and brushed my teeth, rinsed, and used the mouthwash—again my own third-empty bottle of Listerine.
I remembered watching Harris pack my clothes, but how had my other belongings gotten here and unpacked? He’d stuffed my clothes rather hurriedly into a suitcase and herded me out the door, and then taken me directly to the airport. So very strange. It was undeniably impressive, but creepy and unsettling.
With my teeth brushed, my makeup retouched, and my hair fixed, I went back out into the living room of my suite and stood at the window, staring out at the view of the city and trying to get a handle on my own emotions.
Obviously, my strongest emotion was fear. I’d been “collected” without warning, flown across the country, and brought to the palatial penthouse home of some wealthy, secretive man who claimed to own me, and who knew every detail of my life, who knew everything about me, down to my taste in clothes. I didn’t know his name, and I didn’t know what he looked like.
But his voice…god, his voice. Every word he spoke felt intentional, thought-out, carefully chosen and perfectly enunciated. He could go from warm and tender and personal and intimate to sharp as a razor and ice-cold. His voice caressed, hypnotized, penetrated.
I knew the feel of his hands. He had big hands, strong hands. My entire hand had fit easily in his palm, his fingers easily closing around mine. His voice came from above me, it seemed, so I imagined him to be fairly tall.
I was curious. I wanted to know what he wanted from me. Why me? That was the biggest question I had. Why me? He’d watched me for “a long time,” he’d said, and the depth of his knowledge about me made it clear that he wasn’t lying or exaggerating. But yet, despite this, I’d never, ever sensed his presence in my life. Never had the feeling of being followed or watched, except for those few times that he’d already explained. He’d never interfered with my life, never sent creepy letters or made stalker phone calls. When I’d been in the most direly desperate straits of my life, he’d…saved me, and claimed to not want financial repayment.
And he’d also promised that he wouldn’t force sex on me. He just wanted me to…what? I still didn’t know. Be here? Have bizarre blindfolded conversations, blindfolded dinners and cocktail hours? Be his non-sexual blindfolded mistress? He had a housekeeper, so I doubted he was going to try to turn me into some odd Cinderella, doing his laundry or whatever. So what did he want? Just me, it seemed. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was he actually wanted me to do, and I had a feeling I’d never figure it out. I’d only discover that through experience.
And yet, for all my fear, I realized—if I examined my own emotions honestly—that I felt no sense of danger. I didn’t feel threatened by him. I didn’t feel like he was crazy or unstable. Eccentric, surely. Strange and reclusive, definitely. But…dangerously unbalanced? The kind of stalker who would leave me in dismembered packages in a refrigerator? No.
So…the arrangement? Was I going to go along with his wishes? Obey him? Or go home, and return to being one step away from destitution?
I couldn’t do that. Cal was depending on me. I loved my little brother. He was all I really had, and he needed me. He deserved the best chance at a normal life that I could give him. Cal was a smart, good-looking kid with a solid head on his shoulders. He could go places. He was studying filmmaking, and I’d seen some of his pieces; he was talented, and I could see him making it in Hollywood. But I’d have to make sure he finished college. He was already working as much as he could and still go to school. He was a determined kid, and I knew if worse came to worst, he’d find his own way…but I was his big sister, and I’d been his only real parent figure since he was eleven. Mom was helpless, and would never recover. Ravenwood was the best place for her. If I couldn’t pay the bills, she’d end up a ward of the state and would be moved to some shitty nursing home where she very likely would be abused by the staff. I couldn’t let that happen. And, finally, Dad was seven years dead.
I’d already made my decision. When I let Harris put that blindfold on me in the vestibule outside the front doors, I’d made my choice. I wouldn’t back out now. I couldn’t. This was for my mother and brother.
And…yes, for myself. I wanted to know more about this mysterious man who now owned me.
So, with a deep breath, I touched the intercom button. “Eliza? I’m ready.”