Oh, the many things you can do with wax.  Vincent Price never dreamed up anything as deliciously naughty as Toy Box: Wax! 

In Keirnan Kelly’s “Waxing Romantic,” self-professed geek Mark has been lusting after his friend and roommate, Greer, for a while now.  Trouble is, Greer is a gorgeous twink and seems waaaay out of Mark’s league.  But Mark can never say no to his cute-but-flaky crush, so when Greer begs Mark to wax his “fuzzy peach”, well, how’s Mark supposed to turn that down?  A quick trip on the internet to “WaxMasters.com”, and Mark comes up with a nefarious plan.  Little does he know, Greer has some plans of his own! 

In Lee Benoit’s “Full Frontal,” we visit with Dom Preston and his loving slave Paulo.  When Preston inadvertently stirs up old and poisonous memories, Paulo realizes that he wants to move beyond his painful past.  To do this, he decides to be completely naked in front of his lover – and that includes sans hair.  While Paulo is at a shop using wax to strip away the barriers between them, Preston is using wax to heat things up back at home.

In “Wax On, Wax Off” by Syd McGinley, we meet another sort of Master and slave. Tommy is thrilled to belong to his sensei, Professor Tanaka.  The only thing standing in the way of his “happy ever after” is his inability to choose the perfect ownership mark for the Professor to have scarred onto his body.  If he can’t choose a design, Tommy fears their relationship might be over. 

Toy Box: Wax is my first foray into Torquere’s popular Toy Box series, and I was pleasantly surprised.  While it’s difficult to get much more than a quick thrill from stories that average ten to twelve pages, Kelly, Benoit and McGinley manage to eek out quite a bit of, er, bang for their buck.

Kelly’s “Waxing Romantic” is, arguably, the strongest of the lot – primarily because it feels like it stands alone, where “Full Frontal” and “Wax On…” are clearly smaller bits of larger stories.  Mark’s angst is funny and sympathetic, and Greer is surprisingly lovable, too.  The sex? Yummy.  “Full Frontal”, Benoit’s contribution, is by far the most emotional of the trio.  The love between Preston and Paulo is tangible, and the story left me wanting to go back and see where it all began.  My one, tiny problem was a slight “ick” every time Preston’s twisted, arthritic hands were mentioned.  Gnarled knuckles, not really sexy. 

The final offering, McGinley’s “Wax On, Wax Off,” introduced me to a new “sub-genre” of BDSM.  I’d never considered that BDSM might have different rules and protocols based on the culture involved (seems silly and arrogant of me in retrospect), so the glimpse into this Asian flavored version of the genre was a welcome treat.  Unfortunately, Tommy is a slightly annoying and flighty slave to Professor Tanaka, who is an overly inscrutable and almost emotionless Master, and the lack of likeability in the characters took away from the experience. 

Over all, Toy Box: Wax was a quick, titillating read. The uses made of the warm, melty stuff were sometimes surprising, and the glimpses of humor and sincere emotion were rewarding.  It might just be worth your while to hunt down previous Toy Boxes to find more stories featuring these dynamic characters.