Trapped

Barnabas Sword was handsome, self assured, dashing, intimidating, and the way he came on to Hope made me sick to my stomach. My wife's flattered responses made me sicker. It was bad enough at the fund raiser but got worse at Sword's apartment. Much worse. "Oh, let's go, Jack," she had said after Sword, having invited us, went off to take charge of another conversation. "You've had enough wine already," I protested, but I knew we were going.

People connected in various ways to the orchestra, for which the fund raiser was being held. Hope was a second violinist. Sword's role was unclear to me other than it being an association of some kind with Horatio Finley, a major sponsor who had organized the event. I wore a suit and tie. Hope was in a spring dress, looking more like a fashion model than a musician. Sword had on a tuxedo. I watched my wife's gaze follow him as he strode off like a matador.

"It wouldn't be polite not to go. He's an important man, Jack."

"So, what do you think of him, apart from his importance?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. He's fairly good looking, I guess."

"Seems like a take charge guy," I said.

She almost yawned. "I suppose." She showed me her glass. "Jack, I'd like some wine," she said in a way that told me she had forgotten my thirty second old remark on the topic. "Don't fill it. We'll be going soon."

"Half?"

"Half is fine." As I walked off she opened her purse for a mirror to check her lipstick.

"You look glum," a middle age woman said at the bar. I recognized her as the violinist who held the chair before Hope's, and she recognized me. "He enjoys his conquests."

"I bet your pardon."

"Isn't that why you're glum? Because Barnabas is flirting with Hope?"

"That's a long way from a conquest, lady" I replied, testily.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

I nodded and went back with the wine glummer than when I had left. But something was happening to me, hard to describe, an exquisite dread is the best I can do.

Sword's restored Victorian near the center of town was impressive, like the important man himself. You went left from a paneled hallway into a big living room in which the furnishings were expensive and artsy. Hope was struck by several old, large and beautiful Japanese screens that I was told didn't screen much of anything except the areas of the walls they stood before. I supposed they were instead of paintings. Spread around were three cozy arrangements of chairs, one with a sofa, in different styles and sizes, all tasteful. A baby grand piano graced a corner which had a bay window. Shortly after we got there Sword took Hope and me into the library to see his Emily Dickinson first editions which Hope had expressed interest in when Sword mentioned them at the fund raiser. We looked at the books he selected from the shelves and oohed and ached our ignorant appreciation. Back in the living room, where everyone gathered, there was wine, classical music, trays of cookies, a selection of fruit. I made the rounds meeting the other guests: a stout, cheerful woman named Louise Chasterly, about fifty, red dyed hair piled on her head in a bun, Sword's niece, a pretty, sassy eightteen year old named Marcy, a quiet but dangerous looking man around Sword's age (fortyish) named Henry and Horatio Finley himself, intimidating as Sword but in a different way. The small number of us surprised me. I wondered how come. Finley was gracious, which he was known to be at social occasions but not others. Henry turned out to be his bodyguard. This was a night for new experiences and attending a party with someone who had brought a bodyguard was one of them. I was curious to chat with Henry about his profession, but events intervened.

Sword acted the proper host, so much so that, combined with everyone else's good manners, I foolishly began to feel at ease. A little after 9:30 (I know because I had just glanced at Sword's 18th century wall clock), Mrs. Chasterly said to me, with Marcy there, the three of us by one of the draped windows, "Tell me, Jack, have you ever tried making yourself over as a girl?" I felt myself redden. "Of course not," I said, shocked not only by the question but that it was asked in the presence of a kid, having dismissed Marcy's bright lipstick and tight clothes for an innocent attempt to appear older in the company of grownups. Another mistake. Well, no one, not even Hope, knew about my girl outings of which there had been three, one in high school, two in college, prancing about at malls in skirt and blouse, wig and makeup, twice with falsies, once without, each an amazing and exciting experience, but I had put them and it behind me, or so I thought.

"You don't mind my asking, do you, Jack?," the woman breezily went on, "it's just that you are such a natural. You're about the prettiest young man I ever saw and you have that gorgeous hair. You hardly need to shave, don't you. You and your scrumptious wife will have beautiful children, if they're girls. I saw you in your bathing suit in the video of the Orchestra picnic so I know whereof I speak. Most women would kill for legs like yours."

Marcy grinned. "I saw it too."

"Yes, I don't know which one of you is prettier, your wife or you," Mrs. Chasterly added, with a meaningful smile I didn't get the meaning of. It wasn't the first time I had dealt with remarks about my wife's looks, comments that typically boiled down to why is she a starving musician when she could be making a fortune as a piece of ass. My stock answer for the first part was she isn't starving; for the second part, I don't know, why don't you ask her. In fact, her piece of ass qualities were the reason for her escape into music as well as her escape a year ago in marrying me, but lately there had been signs of her coming out of the shell she had first entered around age twelve when her attractions suddenly bloomed for horny boys and men alike. It worried me. I knew how hot she could be, and the signs on this night had been like neon lights ever since Barnabas Sword smiled at her. She was twenty-four now, as was I. It also wasn't the first time I had been treated to the pretty boy observation, though seldom were the comments this bold and never when they came from a woman.

I giggled. It struck me as achingly funny that this was happening, my buried secret brought to the edge of light in the midst of Barnabas Sword's after-party. Mrs. Chasterly was fishing, of course, and I was only caught if I chose to be caught, which I did not, all of which was howlingly funny but I merely giggled.

"Why am I laughing?," I giggled.

"He's giggling," Marcy laughed.

"Indeed he is. You're giggling, Jack." Mrs. Chasterly looked pleased.

"I know," I giggled. Then I almost keeled over at the hilarious and rather satisfying idea of Mrs. Chasterly and Marcy taunting me as a counter to Sword's advances at my wife......I feel like I've had grass, I said to myself.

"Mrs. Chasterly, there isn't grass in the cookies, is there?" I had consumed six, and nothing else.

They didn't bat an eye. "Tell Jackie," Mrs. Chasterly said.

"Mrs. Chasterly cooked the cookies with hashish in them," Marcy said. She smirked and stuck out her tongue in the sexual way of sticking out your tongue.

Things were becoming increasingly weird. "I think I'm surprised you would serve marijuana cookies and not tell anyone, Mrs. Chasterly. What is going on?" I suppressed my laughter.

"Why, a lovely party is going on Jackie," Mrs. Chasterly smiled.

Marcy snickered. "You know why she called you Jackie? Because you giggled like a girl."

"Marcy, you know a lot, don't you!," I brilliantly fired back.

"Yup, I do. Barnabas likes your wife. I bet he's going to fuck her."

Mrs. Chasterly gave my shoulder a comforting pat as I gritted my teeth, giggles cured. "Don't fret, Jack," she said. "I'm sure it's a long shot."

I went to get another cookie and my tormentors drifted over to my wife. A few minutes later I noticed that Finley and his bodyguard had left. At the time, Hope and I had re-linked and were conferring about the cookies we both were enjoying, grass being nothing knew to us although the cookies were a novel delivery device.

She finished one and said, "I heard about your little chat with Louise ."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. She has a point, you know. She thought you were offended. You shouldn't be. It's a cute side of you, Jack, that you could...be attractive that way. It's nothing to be ashamed of." She grinned and repeated, "It's cute."

I stared at her. Since when had she decided it was a cute side of me? We had never discussed it.

It was then that Mrs. Chasterly came and took us each by a hand. "I've just been talking with Barnabas and Marcy. We think it would fun to play a little game, something we can all enjoy. Come on, we'll discuss it." She led us like a pair of pets. Marcy was munching a cookie, not her first, which reminded me I hadn't observed Sword eat one. Why was I not surprised?

Mrs. Chasterly told us that at a party recently with "other cultivated friends" she had learned a parlor game called Character Study. The game called for "intelligence, creativity, nerve and a sense of fun", she said, adding that we all shared those qualities. How she knew Hope and I qualified, since she had just met us, she didn't say. What followed would not have happened had it not been for grass and not any grass but grass this good. All the same, I sensed a rat. I elbowed Hope without effect unless it was the opposite intended for she piped,

"Gosh, this sounds interesting!"

We sat in a circle on the polished birch floor. The girls kicked off their shoes and sat with knees showing, plus, in Marcy's case, several inches of what comes above knees. Mrs. Chasterly wore a pants suit and her knees were beside the point anyway. We now had red wine to go with our cookies, in crystal glasses that Mrs. Chasterly placed on the floor beside us. The cookies were on two plates in front of us. The idea of Character Study was that people agreed on a specific characteristic of the person who was "it" and then you "explored" that characteristic until a majority agreed it had been explored enough and you went on to the next person and his or her characteristic. It sounded fishy to me and when Mrs. Chasterly took the first turn, we were going by age, and her characteristic was to be her hair bun, it also sounded ridiculous. I'll spare you the five minutes spent on the hair bun except to report that Hope and Marcy giggled and I giggled; Sword and Mrs. Chasterly did not giggle but Sword grinned twice at Hope and Mrs. Chasterly smiled sympathetically at me after each grin.

Because he was second oldest Sword's turn was next. Mrs. Chasterly called for suggestions.

"How about his rare book collection?," Hope said, brightly.

"Yuk, that's boring," Marcy said. "Don't you think it's boring, Jack?"

"Maybe this game is boring," I said, being not of a mind to discuss Sword's characteristics, boring or not boring.

Marcy frowned at me and grinned for everyone else. "Hey, this wouldn't be boring. Adam Magazine is having a contest for "America's Handsomest Cock". That's the name of it, the contest. I'm not kidding. America's Handsomest Cock. I think Uncle Barnabas should enter and I bet he could win but he doesn't want to. Maybe we can talk him into it. That's my suggestion for a characteristic."

In view of what had already transpired with Marcy this was not a very surprising proposal, only a shocking one. Hope, however, was encountering the teenager's playful side for the first time, and her jaw dropped.

"Not boring, I agree, dear," said Mrs. Chasterly who seemed neither shocked nor surprised. "Barnabas, do you know of this contest?"

"I'm afraid I do. Can't say I share Marcy's enthusiasm for it."

"But would you consider entering?"

"If I thought I stood a chance at winning. Might be amusing."

Mrs. Chasterly surveyed us with a gaze. "Well, I doubt Barnabas Sword has anything to be afraid of in the manhood department, and neither should we be afraid to undertake a friendly evaluation for him. We're not children. So what do you think, Jackie. Boring or interesting?"

I managed not to giggle but it took work because I had a brain doing cartwheels in lieu of thinking. "No comment, Mrs. Chasterly," is what I thought to say so I said it.

"No comment, what a disappointment. You should try not to be shy, Jackie. What's your opinion, Hope, dear? Boring or interesting."

Hope cracked a tight smile, then sipped her wine, to gain time, I thought. She put her glass on the floor. I looked at her but she kept her eyes on Mrs. Chasterly and said in a quiet voice that sounded forced, "Interesting, I suppose."

"Oh, you suppose. She supposes, Barnabas. I guess she needs convincing. Can you convince her, I wonder."

Sword was nonplused. "I can try, Lousie," he said, offhandedly. You would think we were discussing his nose.

Hope laughed and looked around except at me, embarrassed but also titillated, no doubt. "Phew. I need more cookies and wine," she declared and began helping herself. I noticed she wasn't insisting we get up and go. I noticed I wasn't insisting either. I felt drawn, unable to resist, stuck in mixed feelings. My mouth was dry. My heart was pounding. I needed to think but I didn't feel like thinking.

"All right, Barnabas," Mrs. Chasterly said, cheerfully, "your cock it shall be. How do you suggest we go about exploring its doubtless fascinating attributes?"

"Ask, Marcy. Was her idea," Sword deferred.

"Yes, it was. Marcy?"

"Well, we have to see it. I mean that's obvious, right."

"You mean you haven't seen it, dear?"

"Ha, ha. I've seen it like fifty times. But Hope and Jack haven't. And I have to see it again for this, right? I do."

Mrs. Chasterly made a humming noise. "Good. We'll start there. I guess the question is how exactly will the object of our inquiry make its appearance? I hesitate to intrude again, Barnabas, but it's your object of inquiry."

"I shall assist," Sword said. He unzipped. At least two sets of eyes, Hope's and mine, I know because hers I checked, watched Sword take it out. His hand fell away and there it was, half resting against his elegantly attired left leg, neither hard nor soft. You could tell even in mid-state that it was one terrifically handsome chap. "I sincerely appreciate you're doing this," Sword said to Hope and me, actually sounding sincere. "Before I agree to enter that confounded contest I could use an objective opinion. Probably seems asinine."

"It's not asinine," Hope said, softly. She let her gaze settle where it was appreciated. She gazed a good thirty seconds before she dropped her eyes.

"That's like half hard," Marcy advised, as if one couldn't tell. "Wait till you see him all the way. He's great." I assumed the girl referred to Sword when she said "he" but I soon learned she and Sword and even Mrs. Chasterly all used the pronoun equally for the man and his cock.

Marcy sighed. "It's too bad he didn't start off like really soft, Uncle Barnabas. So we could see him go the whole way, you know, from real soft to hard as steel."

"Yeah. Well, I guess there were certain stimulations that got under his skin that he couldn't hold back," Sword offered.

"Yeah, like her, right?"

"Could be, Marcy."

"Yeah."

Hope was pretending to examine one of the straps of her dress and not hear them mention her being the likely cause of Sword's half erection, but if the silliness of her subterfuge didn't give her way, her red cheeks did.

A little back forth went on then between the three of them, Mrs. C., Sword and Marcy about Sword's erection being stalled, also whether it would be entertaining to have a camera. I missed most of it because I was considering against my better judgment the feature attraction, like my wife had done. I wondered if this could have been due to its presentation, the white hero languid against an expanse of glimmering black Marino wool. I had heard someone at the fund raiser say Sword's tux cost $4,000. I didn't doubt it. The cock deserved a background that rich for being judged against. Suddenly, I felt Hope's eyes. I looked away. Too late

"It is handsome, isn't it. And so big!?," she smiled. Her mind had been elsewhere too, I figured, the same elsewhere as mine.

I nodded at the floor. "It's okay, Jack. I don't care if you look. I did and I'm going to again. I mean we're only...looking at him." Well, I thought, what do I make of that? Now she's doing the "him" bit.

The back and forthers paused, waiting for Hope and me to continue. When we didn't, Mrs. Chasterly said, "We want you to do more than look, dear. You and Marcy need to help him get bigger and harder, so we can all give him his due." She emphasized "all".

Hope's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"Poses," Marcy chirped. "Uncle Barnabas likes me to do poses, you know sexy poses. It makes him hard as anything." She giggled. "I bet he's going to get hard in no time with you doing it. See, like this."

Marcy pushed herself back to make room for her legs. She stretched out. She hoisted her little skirt and folded it over her stomach. Her panties were pink and tiny, edged with pink lace. She closed her eyes and opened her teenage legs.

In our circle if Sword was at twelve o'clock, Marcy was at 12:13, Hope at 12:25, me at 12:35, Mrs. C. at 12:47, all more or less. The circle was now bisected by Marcy's extended legs. We looked at what she was showing. She lifted her head to check our reactions. She grinned, put her head back and raised her right leg. She put it down. The panties hugged her enough to reveal the contours of her cunt. You saw the depression in the silk her slit made. Hope and I had been looking self consciously at Sword and now we looked self consciously at Marcy whose slender shapeliness would have made her a ten on any scale. You could tell she knew it.

Lying flat on the floor, she teased a hand near a side of her panties. She fingered the band suggestively and then she laughed and brought the hand to her waist, put it on top of the folded skirt, slipped it under her red top and up the top came, not fast, until it uncovered the bottoms of her tits at which point Sword stopped her.

"That's enough, Marcy."

"Why?"

"Our next model will go first with that particular display."

"Oh, blah! He wants to see her tits but not mine."

Sword sighed. "Don't pout Marcy. You know he's most fond of your tits."

She laughed and pulled her top down.

A noticeable boost in Hope's excitement showed in her eyes and blushes high in her cheeks. I doubted that I was seeing only the accumulated feelings from her study of Sword's characteristic and possibly from watching Marcy. She was thinking she was going to have to do the same thing, and more. Pose like a camslut, and it was turning her on, hard as she might be fighting it.

Marcy sat up as if cued. Grinning, she chirped, "Your turn." Sword's "Him" hadn't stirred. It remained half erect, awaiting the next hopeful.

Hope pursed her lips. After a moment she cleared her throat and smoothed the back of her hair.

"I'm not sure I want to," she said, crossly.

This girlish or possibly wifely (but I doubt it) reticence was Mrs. Chasterly's to deal with, which she did.

"Well, when do you think you will know, dear?"

Hope glared. "I don't have to do it, Mrs. Chasterly. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to clear your mind to know what it is you want, that's true, but it's also neither here nor there. What you have to do is pose for Barnabas."

"I don't have to!"

"Yes, you do. You do, dear, and we're all waiting. Even Jack is waiting. Most of all, that wonderful manhood you have been admiring is waiting"

My wife's cheeks flushed a brighter red. She flashed her eyes around. Had it challenged her that Marcy's exhibition had gotten nowhere? I was sure it had."