Virgin Bride

Adam tried. She had to give him that. His touch was as light as swansdown, almost worshipful in its delicacy. But she was unable to suppress her reflexive cringe whenever his fingers brushed over her breasts or her mound. Her hands darted to block his against all her efforts to restrain them. When he finally gave up, sagging away from her as if exhausted by his interminable, frustrating ordeal, all she could do was weep.

He lay silent next to her for several agonizing minutes as the tears washed down her face. It was well that the darkness was absolute, for she could not bear to look at him. Her failure was complete, her excuses threadbare. She owed him whatever he might ask in compensation, and more.

They had been married for five weeks.

I made him wait nearly three years, out of nothing but fear. How much longer can this go on before he gives up and leaves me?

"I'm not going to leave you, Mary," he said.

Her head whipped toward him with painful speed. "How -- how did you...?"

"Know what you were thinking?" He snorted gently. "What else would you be thinking just now?" The covers rustled as he turned toward her. His arms went around her and pulled her against him with characteristic gentleness. "It's all right. I still love you just as much as I ever did. We'll work it out in time."

His patience was extraordinary. She'd sensed it upon meeting him, a special aura of unhurried contentment that reached out to calm everyone in his company. It was a big part of why she loved him. The day he proposed to her, after two and a half years of sexless courtship, had been the happiest day of her life, unmatched even by her wedding day. But it had become a reminder of her inadequacy too pointed to be endured.

His breathing had quieted into a faint sighing snore, the sleep sound of a healthy young adult. As she listened to him, she felt her tears spring forth again.

How can he bear it when I can't?

She could not take his forbearance at face value. He'd had lovers before her; he'd been candid about it. He had to be suffering from her neglect of his needs.

He was too good a man to be treated this way, by the woman he'd loved enough to remain chaste for so long. Out of simple justice, to say nothing of her love for him, she would have to fix it -- fix her -- or set him free.

She was walking home from her bookkeeper's job, straining not to think about the evening to come, when she spied the new shop.

It was unobtrusively placed on the north side of Centinela, just a few yards from the turn onto Sepulveda. The store window was tastefully dressed in pink and pastel blue, as if the store sold baby-care goods. It displayed a modest assortment of nightgowns and camisoles in silk and satin. All were at the edge of demure, neither tacky nor bawdy. But the placard at the base of the window:

...suggested that there was more to see inside than a few chin-to-ankles nightgowns. She put her hand to the knob and went in. The interior was pleasantly cool, dimly lit and decorated in shades of sundown and sand.

The merchandise she found inside was a far cry from what hung in the window. There was more there than silk and satin nighties, a lot more. There were garter belts and corselettes in vinyl and black leather. There were peephole bras and open-crotch panties fringed with lace. There was all manner of hose: patterned, fishnet, shining, glittering, and sheer. There were shoes in a hundred fanciful styles, all with very high heels. Some appeared to be made of metal. There was apparatus whose like she'd never seen before, whose relevance to feminine underthings she could not imagine.

A rack against one wall held devices that looked exactly like erect penises, in a dozen different colors. She shrank away from it at once, groping behind her for support. Her hand landed on something rubbery and velvet-soft. It was a life-size model of a woman's vulva.

It was not the sort of shop a twenty-five year old virgin afflicted by deeply driven sexual fear would normally enter by choice.

She was about to back out when a middle aged woman stepped through the bead curtain at the back of the shop and came toward her at an easy gait. She was tall, buxom of chest and hips, and had a beautifully tapered waist. Her walk was a sensuous ripple, as if she were luxuriating in the feel of her skin. Her leather vest and miniskirt fit her like an aerosol coating. Her five-inch stiletto heeled pumps seemed to cost her no difficulty as she moved.

"How are you, dear?" Her voice was an alto coo. "Can I show you anything in your size?"

Mary had been ready to cut and run, but the shopkeeper's voice and relaxed demeanor calmed her as if by instant hypnosis. She started to speak, stopped, and threw a quick glance over her shoulder at the display window.

"Well...ah...I was admiring the peach satin nightie you have in the window, but on reflection I really don't think..."

The shopkeeper smiled knowingly. She crossed her arms over her breasts and allowed her eyes to travel the length of Mary's slender body. Her gaze took in Mary's cardigan, her blouse, and her calf-length wool skirt. She shook her head once.

"No, dear, neither do I. Your charms need a bit more emphasis than that nightgown could give them." She held out an elegantly manicured hand. "I'm Helen."

Mary took it and shook it hesitantly. "I'm Mary Gorrell."

Helen inclined her head in a micro-curtsey. "Welcome to Naughty But Nice, Mary." She did not release Mary's hand. "We have some selections in stock that would flatter you much better than the ones in the window. Would you permit me to show them to you?"

Mary's sense of relaxation deepened. A smile grew on her face as her remaining anxiety drained from her.

"Why not, if you think you have something that would suit me? Adam won't be home for a few hours yet."

Helen cocked an eyebrow. "Is Adam your husband?"

"Yes."

Helen turned gracefully and shifted her grip on Mary's fingers, to lead her by the hand through the bead curtain. Mary did not resist.

"Then let's see if we can find something naughty but nice for him to come home to, shall we?"

Never thereafter could Mary be certain what had opened her up. Mere minutes after passing through the beads into Helen's back sanctum, she'd allowed the shopkeeper to undress her clear to the skin and immerse her in a huge clawfooted tub. She sank into languor as Helen sponged her with warm, lilac-scented water.

"Is this something you do for all your lady clients?" she murmured.

Helen smiled. "No, dear. Some don't need it. But you did. You were tight as a bowstring. That's no condition to be in when you're about to try on lingerie like mine." She set down her sponge and leaned over to look into Mary's eyes. "What had you in such a state, anyway?"

Without willing it, she let it all come out. Her fumbling adolescent experiments with petting and the guilt they cost her. Her father's terrible rage when he caught her and her fifteen year old swain. The painful, humiliating course of self-scourging he insisted on and monitored. The fear of men and her body that had plagued her ever afterward. And of course, the tragedy with Adam, sweet, gentle, infinitely patient Adam whom she loved more than life.

Helen listened without speaking; indeed, without batting an eyelash.

When Mary had run down, Helen sponged Mary's torso a few more times, then squeezed out the sponge and tossed it aside. Mary started to rise from the tub, but Helen raised a hand, and Mary settled back again.

"We're not quite done, dear." The shopkeeper went to an unobtrusively placed cabinet and returned with a can of shaving gel and a razor.

"Did I do that bad a job on my legs this morning?" Mary leaned over and squinted at her limbs, saw nothing.

Helen smiled. "This isn't for your legs, dear. Just relax."

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Helen spread shaving gel over Mary's pubis and rubbed it gently to a thick lather. Mary simply watched, incredulous but unmoving, as the shopkeeper applied the razor to her mound. Helen worked methodically but carefully to clear away the curls over Mary's vulva.

"One of the first things I learned about sexual pleasure -- I mean, really learned, through experience -- is that you must take command of your body." The razor glided smoothly over Mary's mons veneris. "You have to assert your will over yourself, as odd as that sounds. You have to insist that your body will be an instrument of delight." Helen paused to look into Mary's eyes. "That's what you want it to be, isn't it?"

"Uh, yes, I suppose so." A little of the tension was returning.

Helen noticed it and smiled. "Relax, dear. I promise you'll like the results. Hair in the genitals is always an impediment to sensation. But we don't have to let it be. See, I'm just about finished." Two final strokes of the razor, and Mary's pubis was as bare as a newborn's. She bent over to gape at the change as Helen pulled the plug from the tub drain. The water gurgled out, carrying Mary's pubic hair with it.

She couldn't believe how velvety her mound had become. The forbidding patch of tightly curled hairs was entirely gone, leaving only smooth, unblemished flesh that begged to be caressed. It was as if she'd been transported into a stranger's body.

She reached down to touch herself for the first time in ten years.

Helen stopped her, and she looked up in puzzlement.

"Not quite yet, dear. Bear with me a moment."

Helen returned to her cabinet, and returned with a tall, thin bottle containing some sort of cream.

"Let me rub a bit of this into you before you go exploring."

Without preliminary, Helen dispensed some lotion from the bottle onto her fingertips and began to massage it into Mary's mound.

The caress of Helen's fingers was a compound of all the joys of the flesh. The lotion contained some warming unguent that made a pleasant heat travel from her loins all the way to her toes and her brain. Helen's ministration brought her from her state of total relaxation to a rising pitch of excitement that her father would surely have condemned. When the shopkeeper parted Mary's labia to stroke her clitoris, her face and chest were flushed, her breathing was quick and ragged, and her legs were as widely spread as the tub would permit. No twinge of guilt or shame rose to block her joy. Her climax was a passage from a gray and unsatisfactory world into a realm of utter bliss.

"How can I ever thank you?" Mary's tears flowed freely, but she regretted them not at all.

Helen smiled and squeezed her hand. "By coming alive, dear. By learning to love yourself as you deserve."

"Is this how I can do that?"

"In part," Helen said. "It's about will. You accepted your father's will in place of your own, at a very vulnerable age. It's long past time for it to give way."

"To Adam's will?"

Helen reared back in mock horror. "Of course not. What an idea! To your will. To your desire for pleasure and fulfillment." She leaned close to Mary once again. "That is what you want for yourself, isn't it?"

Mary nodded mutely. Helen sat back.

"Then it shall be so. The transition will require some help, though."

"A therapist?"

"You could say that. But I was thinking of myself."

A thread of Mary's unease returned. "Are you a lesbian, Helen?"

"No, dear. But I'm an...experienced woman. I know the stages one must go through to defeat a condition like yours, and I can lead you through them. I'm also rather authoritative, as you may have noticed. I can provide a substitute voice of direction that will ease you away from your father's bequest of pain and shame."

She rose, went to her cabinet again, and returned with an odd-looking device, a short, slightly curved rubber cylinder mounted on an oval leather strip, from which dangled several strands of elastic.

"Come out of there and step into this, dear." She spread one of the elastic loops and beckoned Mary into it.

A moment later the cylinder was nestled in the opening to Mary's vagina. Helen stepped around her, drew the straps tight, and Mary gasped. The leather oval settled between her labia, holding the little device snugly inside her. She felt a trickle of fluid begin inside her, in response to the unaccustomed intrusion. The sensation made her want to flex and rub her loins against something unyielding.

"This is called a French nub," Helen said. "It's short enough not to press against your hymen, but it fills you enough to start your lubrication and keep you in a state of pleasant tension. It was designed to sexualize virgins, to enhance their desire for their husbands. How does it feel?"

"Wonderful," Mary murmured. "It makes me want to...to touch myself."

"That's the idea, dear. But not quite yet. Let it work on you. Wear it for the rest of the day." An undertone of command sang behind the words. "It will make your evening with Adam more...memorable."

Slowly, Mary donned her clothes and readied herself to go. Helen watched and said nothing. When she zipped up her skirt, the nub sent a quick current of pleasure through her. She shivered, and Helen smiled.

"What do I owe you for this?"

Helen shook her head. "It's a gift, dear. Use it well."

Mary looked at her incredulously. "Are you some kind of angel?"

Helen's smile turned mysterious. "Perhaps."

As she waited in their apartment for Adam to arrive, Mary's excitement built continuously. She could feel the nub at every moment, whether she was in motion, sitting, or standing still. The delicious sense of her lubrication running along her inner walls, trickling past the nub and soaking into her white cotton panties disturbed her not at all. Several times she started for the bedroom, intending to doff her skirt and press the nub into her smooth flesh in quest of a second climax, but Helen's command rang in her head, and she restrained herself.

She was sitting in the kitchen over a cup of rose hip tea when she heard Adam at the door. She thought of going to meet him, but a tingle in her loins suggested that she stay where she was.

A moment later he appeared in the entrance to the kitchen. He looked slightly abraded by his day, as he always did. His eyes lit on her face, and his usual smile acquired a touch of curiosity.

"How was your day, sweetie? You look a little...different."

She raised her eyebrows and set down her cup. "Different how?"

"Uh, maybe a little flushed. Are you feeling okay?"

She rose from the table and went to him. "Oh, definitely okay. Much better than that, in fact."

He opened his mouth to say something else but never did. She took his head in her hands and planted her lips squarely on his, while pressing her mound against his crotch as she had never dared to do in the three years past.

"Dear God," Adam gasped. "What brought that on?"

She trailed her fingers over his chest. "Didn't you like it?"

"Of course I did! But what made such a...a difference from last night?"

She thought of telling him about her afternoon, decided against it. "Couldn't it just have been the right time?"

He propped himself on an elbow and stared at her in the dimness of their little bedroom. "Just like that?"

She nodded.

"Did it hurt when I...you know...broke you?"

She shook her head. "I didn't even notice."

"This is a miracle," he breathed. "I was beginning to lose hope."

"Want to do it again?" She felt naughty for suggesting it, but it was a very nice sort of naughty. Helen would surely approve.

"Uh, not right now." Her newborn confidence wilted. "I have a bunch of paperwork I have to get through before the morning." He noticed her disappointment and his expression clouded. "Is that okay? I mean, the night is young."

She forced herself to grin. "Sure, sweetie." His look of contentment returned as he levered himself off the bed and made for his pile of clothes.

But it wasn't okay, not really. Not at all.

Helen pursed her lips. "I'd hardly call his reaction inadequate, dear."

Mary grimaced. "I guess. But I'd got so...so..."

"Hot?"

"Well, yes. I wanted to love him all evening and night and well into the morning, until neither of us could do it any more. I mean, I'd gone to...to all that trouble, and --"

"Trouble?" Helen's gaze became challenging.

"You know, with the nub thing."

"Would you really call that trouble, dear?"

Mary quailed a little from the interrogatory tone. "No, I guess not." Yet she'd been honestly disappointed. Let down. And she had no words in which to express it. "What about your other customers, Helen?"

The shopkeeper flipped a hand. "I put up the CLOSED sign when you came by, dear. We won't be disturbed."

"Oh." Mary felt confusion rise within her.

What does she get out of this, anyway?

Helen sat forward. "You're wondering how I can afford to do this, aren't you?"

"Well, yes."

"My late husband left me quite well off, dear. The shop is more a hobby than a means of support."

What a hobby!

"You had an unusually strong reaction to our session yesterday, and to the nub," Helen said. "You had a lot pent up and ready to pour forth. Adam hasn't been quite as constrained as you were. How long did you say he courted you?"

"Three years."

"And you're sure there were no other women in his life during that time?"

"Of --" She halted in mid-affirmation. Helen waited, looking expectant.

How sure am I really?

"I guess I'm not absolutely sure. But since we married, he's been home at the same time every night, without fail, so whatever he might have been doing before, he's faithful now. He's got to be!"

"I'm sure he is," Helen said in a tone that suggested that the matter allowed for considerable doubt. "After all, if he'd wanted to stay footloose, he wouldn't have married you. Yet he's not overflowing with desire, the way you are now, and you'd like to fix that, wouldn't you?"

Mary nodded vigorously.

"I think I have an idea." Helen rose and went to her cabinet once more. Mary stood as well.

This time she brought back a curious looking contraption of leather and steel rings. Surely it wasn't meant for her to wear, as the nub was.

"Fair is fair for everyone, isn't that so, dear?" Helen held the device before her, examining it with narrowed eyes.

"I...guess so."

"And you're wearing your nub today, aren't you?" Before Mary knew it, Helen's fingers were palpating her groin, probing gently for the little device. The rush of pleasure through Mary's loins brought her near to a faint.

"Yes." Involuntarily she undulated her hips against the pressure from the shopkeeper's fingers. When they withdrew, Mary was red-faced and hugely disappointed.

"Then perhaps Adam should wear something too." Helen handed the device to Mary, who took it gingerly.

"These metal rings go around his penis." Helen pointed at them. "The largest goes at the base, and the narrowest near the head. Then you wrap this strap around his balls, and pull this one up between them to meet the eyelet at the bottom of the largest ring. He won't be making love to anyone else with this on. And it will keep him as excited and ready for you all day as your nub keeps you."

Mary looked at the apparatus dubiously. "How am I supposed to get it on him?"

"After you've made love tonight. He won't resist, I promise you."

"And how..." She faltered and started fresh. "How do I get him to keep it on?"

Helen held up a small padlock. The haft was just barely small enough to fit through the eyelets that were to secure the device on Adam's body. Mary's mouth made an O of realization.