Riley: Disobedience
Jack brings me breakfast and undoes my bonds. The bathroom has been neatly stocked with the most expensive version of every toiletry and personal care item I could ever need or dream of. I wash, prepare myself, then sit on his bed and eat, all while I’m still naked. Jack watches me with interest as I move through my tasks, and I can’t stop blushing. Christie joins us, and her seeing me completely exposed only makes it worse. She doesn’t seem to even notice.
“I have business. Christie will show you your chores,” Jack says. When I’m done eating he commands me to stand. I can’t think of any reason to resist, and I still haven’t been able to figure out my next move, so I do it.
Christie passes something small and silver to Jack. I realize what it is and blush deeply. I’ve never seen one in real life—only heard it described in books and watched it in a pornographic film one time, on a curious foray into the dirtier parts of the internet. Jack’s holding a chastity cage.
Specifically: my chastity cage.
It’s made out of smooth, silver metal, has a flat little triangle that lays against my pussy, and a band that runs up along my bottom. It has a clasp on one side that lets it slip on, and Jack kneels down at my feet and lets me step into it. His fingers only hold the outside of the device, not touching me, but I shiver as he pulls the metal up my legs and fits it snugly against my private places.
It fits me perfectly. I realize he somehow must’ve had it made the night before. Did he perfectly eyeball my measurements? He snaps the lock on the side into place, trapping me in chastity.
“You belong to me. You’re not allowed to touch yourself without my permission.” He lays a hand over the little silver triangle. “This is mine.”
I shiver and try to cover it by snapping back, “Yeah, you said that already.”
“You’ll be obeying Christie today. She’ll guide your chores, and if you need to use the bathroom she’ll unlock you. If you resist her or cause trouble I’ll punish you later. When I get home I want this place dusted and spotless, and I want you to prepare dinner and present it to me.”
“Like your little fucking housewife, huh?” Don’t push him. What’s wrong with you?
He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “If that’s what you want to fantasize about, sure.”
I blush and bite my lip. I’m arguing with a man while I’m naked and locked in chastity. I feel ridiculous. He’s already won.
Christie brings in a tiny white lace bra, and Jack wraps my breasts in it and fastens it. It’s so skimpy that they nearly spill out over the top, but it fits perfectly. He has me sit and pulls white stockings up my legs, then he fits on six-inch black heels. They’re my size exactly and fit perfectly. I don’t think my feet have ever been in something so beautiful. These shoes are worth as much as some people’s cars, and he’s putting me in them to clean his apartment.
I feel almost more embarrassed in this slutty lingerie than I did when I was naked. But I feel something else, too. Something I’ve almost never felt before: alluring. I’ve never been dressed in such beautiful, lascivious things. I would never admit it to anyone in the world, but in spite of everything else and just for a moment, I like it. It makes me feel good; it makes me feel like an object of desire, and I’ve never felt like that before. It’s wrong to like this, I think, but my feelings don’t care what reason has to say.
The final piece is a tiny black French maid’s dress. It hugs every curve, shows an enormous amount of cleavage, and hardly covers me.
I can’t believe I’m letting a man treat me like this. I can’t believe I’m letting anyone treat me like this. It’s like something out of some lurid movie, not real life. The most I’d been disrespected before this was by mean girls talking behind my back, or a barista screwing up my order at the coffee shop and not fixing it. Now this man is controlling me and commanding me to do the most absurd, shameful things. And he’s acting as if it’s his right to do so.
“Kneel,” Jack says and I do it, going to my knees in front of him. I signed the contract. I’ve already let him go so far. What’s the point of saying “No” now?
“I want you to clean and dust my rooms. Don’t touch the books or papers. I want everything else to be immaculate. I’m going to inspect the house when I get back. You’ve already been disobedient and I’m going to discipline you for that. If you haven’t cleaned satisfactorily, you’ll get additional punishment to help you learn.”
“I’m not a fucking imbecile!” I blurt out, smarting at needing “discipline” and “punishment.”
“No. You’re my property.” He’s gone before I can get out a response.
Christie looks at me steadily once he’s left. She’s strikingly beautiful. “Let’s be clear,” she says. “I’m not your friend. I’m not here to help you, secretly or otherwise. Do what I say and we’ll get along well. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes, Christie.’”
“Yes, Christie.”
“Get up and follow me.”
When I stand Christie examines me first, then corrects my posture, adjusting my back, shoulders, and chin. It feels hopeless. I’ll never have her poise or grace. I wobble awkwardly on the absurdly high heels.
“Small steps—literally and metaphorically,” Christie says and sets me to my chores.
Jack’s apartment is so immaculate that it’s hard to find things to do. I just dust things with a little feather duster like a maid out of an old movie.
I have to get on my hands and knees and crawl around to get the lower shelves in the main room, and the cage tugs and presses against me in the most strangely pleasing ways. I keep thinking about Jack putting it on and calling me his property. It makes me furious each time it flashes through my head. But then, before I know it, I’m wet.
I curse my body and whatever screwed up part of my subconscious is to blame and keep working. I straighten pillows on the couches and make sure the kitchen is clean. I’m pretty sure he’s given me the most menial and useless job possible as some kind of lesson in obedience or something, but I’m not going to give him the pleasure of finding some fault in what I’ve done.
The kitchen is stocked with every utensil and utility imaginable. It’s like a fucking store except everything looks custom made—the knives are the sharpest I’ve ever used, and when I examine them I can’t find any branding. I don’t recognize them from any catalog I’ve ever browsed. They only have a single, mysterious symbol near the handle. Ripples of steel folded hundreds of times over run through them. I’m pretty sure they’re hand forged. When I cut the steak I’m preparing, the blade slides through it like butter.
I’m no chef, but for some reason I’m determined to make something perfect for Jack instead of, say, burning it to spite him. The fridge is stocked with an ideal range of fresh, expensive ingredients. Christie must do the shopping for him.
There’s a television in the kitchen, and I see on the news that gang violence has erupted on Staten Island and all the way on the other side of Manhattan, in the Bronx. I try to assure myself that it wasn’t the business Jack was attending to.
When he returns in the evening I stand in the center of the main room, clasp my arms behind my back, and await his inspection. He’s not going to find a dust mote out of place.
He doesn’t even glance at the apartment.
“Go to the bath and strip yourself down to your bra and chastity belt,” he says, hardly looking at me.
I open my mouth to protest then snap it shut. Fine, you’re going to play with me that way? I’ll act like I don’t care either. Because I don’t.
I stride to the bathroom, keeping my back straight and my chin up. He follows after me and watches me undress. I strip the little dress over my head and toss it aside on the floor.
“Leave the stockings and heels on. Unclip your bra.”
I hesitate a moment, blushing. For some reason it feels like more of a victory for him seeing me embarrassed than seeing me naked. Why do I try to compete at all? He’s a psychopath. Just go along so he doesn’t kill you. But I still feel the strangest yearning to resist Jack—defy him. I don’t know if it comes from anger or a morbid curiosity.
I let the bra drop.
He examines me without a hint of embarrassment or modesty. Even Caleb’s scummy dad would look away when I caught him staring at my breasts. Jack has no such modesty. He looks at me as if it’s his right. When he’s had his fill, he steps up and unlocks my chastity belt. He slides it off and down my legs and I’m left naked before him except for stockings and six-thousand-dollar heels. He puts his hands on my hips and lifts me onto the bathroom counter effortlessly.
“Spread your legs.”
It takes everything I have to force myself to do it. I want to curl away and hide my nakedness. That’s what feels natural. But I have to obey him. Do it for your family. I made a deal. I agreed.
I spread my legs for him. He examines me and takes out a razor. The counter is so large that I can lie back on it without my head touching the mirror. He places a hand between my breasts and presses me until I’m on my back. He lifts my legs so my heels are on the edge of the counter.
I shaved for Caleb occasionally—on the off chance that he’d show some interest in me or I in him. But I currently have a short layer of hair covering my private places—I’m not completely smooth. I freeze as Jack places the blade on my skin.
“Breathe,” he says. I wasn’t and I didn’t even realize it. I suck in a shuddering breath.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I only hurt exactly who I mean to hurt. Just stay still and breathe.”
He removes my shoes, peels off my stockings, lathers his hands with shaving cream, and rubs it up and down my legs. He moves down to my ankles and slowly works the razor back up. I’m left completely smooth. Then he starts on that area between my legs. He brushes shaving cream over it without even touching me. I’m wet and trembling. It felt so good having his rough hands rubbing my legs with the shaving cream, and it feels shockingly good being shaved like this by him. It feels so shameful, too, but deep down inside, the shame turns me on. I can hardly admit it, even to myself, but I know that it’s true. The feeling’s too strong to deny.
He’s barely even touched me, but being shaved like this by Jack, ostensibly against my will, is one of the single most erotic experiences of my life. Sex with Caleb was like saltine crackers. Boring, basically. Really, really boring. This is like experiencing flavor for the first time in my life. It fills me with guilt—good girls don’t like dirty things like this, right?—but I don’t know how else to describe it. My body has never felt as alive as it has over the last day in Jack’s grasp.
I feel exposed and vulnerable, too, but part of me likes that as well.
It’s shameful and fucked up and wrong. But for all that my mind protests, something deeper yearns. My breath is just a little heavy and I’m sweating.
“How do you feel, Riley? And remember your contract. You have to tell me the truth. That’s part of the deal. You’re not going to go back on your deal, are you?”
“Yeah, I’m always really concerned about obeying the contracts violent assholes force me into.”
He shrugs. “Oh? I didn’t realize. Well, I’ll disregard it then and go to your family to collect your debt.” He actually starts to turn away as if he’s going to do it right then.
I glare at him and then say, hatefully, “I feel aroused.”
He turns back and brushes a hand gently, teasingly over my stomach, just barely touching my skin. His hand feels rough and wonderful. “Good girl.”
He still hasn’t touched me down there, between my legs; he’s only used the razor. But a sick part of me yearns for him to grab me again, like he did last night. A tension and warmth has started building up inside of me and I feel a need for release.
Jack’s shaved me completely bare except for a little rectangle of hair. I reach down to feel my new smoothness, but he catches both my wrists and firmly forces them back. “Not even a single touch without my permission.”
“You’re sick!”
“So are you.”
He fills the bath for me and takes in my body again as I wash away the residue of the shaving cream.
He washes and polishes my chastity belt. As soon as I’ve toweled, off he squeezes it back up and locks it.
Fuck is all I can think to myself, furious with new pent-up desire. I want release—need release—and I feel pathetic and sick for needing it.
My chest is literally heaving like some black-and-white movie heroine. Jack steps up close to me, standing between my still-spread legs. He’s so calm. So sure. His rich, wonderful scent fills me. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m on the edge of trembling and I clench my body, trying to hold still. How can I be this turned on by him just standing close to me?
“Tell me what you want, Riley,” he says in a calm, deep voice that seems to vibrate through me, all the way down to that spot between my legs.
“Nothing!” I snap back. Then, trying to sound calm, “Nothing.”
I keep my eyes squeezed shut and just try to breathe and calm my racing heart. I can sense him in front of me. His lips are inches from my own, and his warm breath washes over me.
“Are you telling me the truth? You signed a contract. You agreed to never lie to me. Are you someone who stands by your word?”
“Yes. Even when I shouldn’t have to! Even when men coerce me!”
“If you thought I was a monster then you shouldn’t have made a deal with me in the first place. Tell me the truth. What do you want?”
“Nothing!”
“Lie. I’ll punish you for that later.”
I can feel him about to press his lips to my own. I brace my body for him to take me up, spank me, ravish me. But he simply turns and walks out of the room.
“Get my dinner,” he says over his shoulder.
I take a moment and suck in a few breaths. Christie comes in with a velvety black gown. It’s gorgeous and very revealing with two slits running all the way up my legs and halfway up my abdomen. I would’ve never dared wear something so risqué on my own.
“You’ll wear evening attire every night to dine with Jack,” she says, then leaves.
When my legs feel steady enough, I step back into my heels and walk out to serve him dinner. I used to cook for Caleb a lot—I saw it as one of the many little ways I could pay him back for supporting me after we moved away from my job. But he doesn’t have a very complex palate, and the more I worked and struggled over meals the less he seemed to like them. We ended up having pizza, burgers, mac and cheese, and pasta on rotation every week—all foods I like but which are not very difficult to make.
When I tried to experiment with them, Caleb disliked it and would skip to dessert or snacks. By the end we mostly just ordered takeout and ate in front of the TV while he watched sports. When I suggested more varied things—sushi or hibachi or some other exotic treat—Caleb tended to shoot it down.
I walk out and Jack’s eyes don’t leave my body as I lean over the table and serve him. He’s changed into fresh, crisp evening attire.
I sort of expect Jack to be the same as Caleb; he’s a gangster, not some foodie. Or maybe he’s going to tear into everything I’ve done and use it as a way to break me down.
But he doesn’t. He eats slowly and in small bites, and he seems to weigh and savor each one.
“You’ve done well. Please sit and eat with me.”
I sit at the far end of the table. I tell myself to keep my mouth shut while things are going well. but I can’t. “What do you think you are, some little English lord?” I blurt out, indicating his changed clothes.
“No. This isn’t routine. I’ve changed because I’m eating with you.” How flattering, he’s polite enough to dress up for his victims. But even though I shouldn’t care, I do feel flattered somewhere deep down inside.
We spend the rest of the dinner in silence. It’s not uncomfortable, though. For some reason I have the feeling that we would have worlds to say to each other if we wanted to.
I clear the plates at the end and wash everything. Jack sits back and watches me. When we weren’t already eating in front of the TV, Caleb would always leave me to clean up and bee-line for a game on cable.
For some reason it turns me on just having Jack’s eyes on me as I perform these simple tasks. He watches my scantily clad body like I’m the best thing on TV, and it makes a smile trace over my lips for just a moment.
What’s wrong with me? I beg the universe again, but it still doesn’t have an answer.
When I’m done I go to the center of the room and present myself to him. It occurs to me that I can, perhaps, annoy Jack by following his rules perfectly, rather than breaking them. I’ll swallow everything I hate about this deep down, find subtler ways to work against him, and follow his orders to the letter.
But I break almost immediately. Jack strides around me, examining me. He’s about to compliment me on my obedience in presenting to him when I blurt out, “Where were you today?”
Annoyance flashes behind his eyes.
“I watched the news. That stuff on Staten Island and up in the Bronx; is that what gangsters do? Was that your business?”
I don’t know why I’m asking these things. I just want to find a place to poke him where it hurts. I don’t care if he was nice to me at dinner; I want to find a place to stab him. I can’t get him with a knife but maybe I can hurt him with my tongue. I want to hurt and humiliate him like he’s hurt and humiliated me.
“There are kids all over the city, you know. And bystanders—all kinds of bystanders. But you know that, right? You just don’t care. Just like you didn’t care when your guys almost killed those cops last night. What is all this for people like you? Is it a game?”
Jack circles around and stands in front of me. There’s some new tightness in his core, not quite hidden, and I brace myself. But all he does is sneer.
“You’re an imbecile like everyone else, Riley. All of you people walk through your gentle, protected lives and think you have principles until they’re put to the test, and then they all wash away. Look at what you’ve been willing to do under the slightest pressure: You’ve sold your body to me. You’ve made yourself a whore. You think you wouldn’t do worse if it was required of you?”
“Fuck you!”
Jack walks towards me and wraps one hand around my throat. His grip is loose—I can still breathe—but firm as steel. I grasp his arm and tug at it. I can’t move it even a fraction of an inch. He pulls me across the room and down a corridor and I stumble to keep up with him, choking along the way. I feel humiliation flood through me. The frustration of being physically controlled by another person so completely is nearly unbearable.
I don’t know where he’s taking me. Images of some bloody torture chamber fill my mind. But he opens a gilded door and takes me through to a gorgeous white bedroom. There’s a mattress on the floor at one end, and silver chains hang from the wall.
He tosses me onto the bed and I tumble to a stop, unharmed. I get onto my knees and slap him. He doesn’t try to block it even though I realize he could, easily. I slap him again. Then again. His face doesn’t even move, but my hand stings.
Something cracks in me and I scream at him—animalistic and incoherent—at the top of my lungs, until the last modicum of air has left my body.
All emotion’s left his face. He’s as blank and unreadable as he was in the poker room. He doesn’t give me any response, only forces me backwards and cuffs me to the silver chains. The cuffs themselves are padded leather like the collar; they don’t hurt or constrict, but they’re impossible to escape. He chains the back of my collar to a third silver chain from the wall. I’m left trapped on the bed.
This is my cage. The place they were preparing last night when I slept in Jack’s bed.
I scream at him again until my lungs are empty, then brace myself to be slapped. But he gives me no reaction; he only stares at me with boredom and disdain. I can’t tell if it’s feigned or real but it only fills me with more rage.
“You’re pathetic,” he says in a flat voice. “You’ll be punished for all of this tomorrow, for your own sake, so you can learn, since Daemon would kill you for wasting his time like this.”
He reaches down as he speaks, tears off my dress, slips off my shoes and stockings, and unclips my bra, snapping the straps to pull it off. I blush furiously and a jolt of terror and arousal runs through me. He’s going to take me. Here. Now.
“Fuck you!” I spit back as soon as he’s done speaking. “You can’t win an argument with me so you drag me around because you’re bigger! Lose at words so use your big muscles, huh, you monkey?” Fear and anger keep swelling higher and higher in me, and anger keeps winning out.
His eyes are dark and unmoved. “This whole process will be much easier for you if you drop the idea that I’m a man of any principles. I don’t give a damn about principles; I take what I want and do what I want. I’m going to show you how the world works, not tell you, and if you’re lucky you’ll learn in time for it to save your life.” And then he’s gone and I’m shut in alone.
I look around furiously for some recourse for the rage in my chest. One entire side of the room is thick, one-way glass that looks out over the city lights. I gaze out at the incredible view for a while, trying to calm myself. I’m comfortable on the bed, even with my restraints. I realize Jack removed my bra because I can’t reach over to do it myself, and I have to push away a twinge of unwanted gratitude.
But the rage is still there. I scream again and keep screaming until my voice is too hoarse to scream anymore, then I collapse back into the bed.
“You’ll be punished,” Jack’s voice echoes in my head, and suddenly fear overcomes anger. My heart patters nervously in my throat. What will he do to me? And then an even more mortifying thought: How will my body respond?
My mind races for a long time, but exhaustion finally drags me under. Will he hurt me or will it be sexual? I’m not sure, in that moment, which I dread more: pain or humiliation.