Don't Judge Me Ch. 07

"Alright. This is how it works. Listen carefully," she began, and then continued without pause, "Men find it easy to become task-focused. If they want to get something done, they can become single-minded relatively easily. They often learn to do this in their work, for example, which can make them seem uncaring, because they don't even notice other people's feelings, and don't stop to consider, let alone share, their own. They are focused exclusively on their task. Do you understand?"

That was relatable, "Oh, yes. I see what you mean. I've seen guys do that."

"Ok," she continued, "now, this is something women can do as well, of course, but women are socialized not to, from the youngest age. We are... encouraged... to remain in tune with the feelings of those around us, as well as our own. But you will see some women, in high-powered jobs, for example, or in the military, or emergency services, using the same type of mental technique for focus, and you would find them similarly unreadable."

I nodded. This was making sense.

"None of this is especially unhealthy unless, of course, it is taken too far." she looked over her glasses sternly at me in a school-teacher sort of way, "You must on the one hand operate independently of your sensations and feelings, but on the other hand you must also experience them, be aware of them, just on another level. Otherwise you simply deny them, and that can make you quite unwell. It's most destructive. This is a grave danger."

I must have looked like I didn't quite understand, because she continued, "Dangerous men, vicious men, distant, uncaring, cruel men, are men who are making this mistake, for the most part. One becomes less than human if one loses touch with one's innate sensuality, one's feelings. I have seen it happen. Not only to men, but also to women. It is a most terrible thing, and you must guard against it!"

She seemed to realize that her voice had been rising in volume and pitch to a sort of crescendo, and she checked herself. It was out of character for her to break from her calmly authoritative mode, but I got the idea. She was really emphatic about this danger. It had the desired effect of making me... if not scared, at least determined not to fall into the trap.

"Ok," I said, partly in an attempt to reassure her, "I get that. I think I see, sort of. But I'm not sure exactly how it will work, feeling the feelings, but being 'task-focused' at the same time...?"

"The young men I have in my employment." Miss Havisham gestured to an empty space, but I understood she meant those dreamy boys who had previously been so delightfully present. "We train them. It's not difficult. It doesn't involve anything particularly special. We hire intelligent men who have a healthy connection with their feelings, and we train them to work in a highly task-focused way. That protects them, as well as my... guests".

"The girls?" I responded? Were they guests? Or were they employees?

"Oh, no, not the girls," she responded, seeming slightly impatient that we were getting off the point, "They are our friends. My guests are... well, you may meet one if you'd like to stay for dinner. What are your plans this evening?"

Without warning I had the sensation of falling, like one of those weird dreams where you wake up dizzy. My plans for this evening? Like, back in the real world, outside of the manor house? Did that world still exist? It was like a distant memory, far away on the other side of a mystical portal I had passed through. A sort of 'Spare Oom', far from this Narnia, or a Kansas from which I had been taken in a whirlwind to this Oz. I struggled to take my mind there. What day is it? What was I doing before I came here? Where do I live? Who am I?

It took a couple of swirling moments to reorient myself in the context of the outside world, "Oh... my flatmate is out of town this weekend. I had the flat to myself. No real plans."

"Well then, stay for dinner. I can have the driver take you home after, if you wish." she gestured as though it were all arranged.

"Thank you, I'd like that," I was truthful. I really didn't want to leave. She has a driver?

"Good. Now. I was talking about these young men. Let me demonstrate." she rang the little bell beside her plate. Almost immediately the same four gorgeous waiters filed into the room and while two took up their places behind us, the other two attended to refilling my glass and Miss Havisham's to precisely the same level, about one third up the height of the bulbous glass, that the glass had originally held.

"Angelo, dear, take off your shirt," Miss Havisham instructed, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if instructing him to open a window. The waiter who had been hovering several paces behind me, presumably waiting for me to finish my meal so he could clear my plate, stepped forward and removed his jacket.

I was taken aback. I didn't know what to expect. What, exactly, was going on here?

Miss Havisham was looking directly at my waiter, and side-eyeing me with a slight grin beneath her pursed lips. I didn't know where to look. This Angelo was behind me to my right, and I could only see his movements in the corner of my eye. Should I spin around and look? Should I pretend it wasn't happening? As my cheeks flushed, he unbuttoned his shirt with deliberate, unhurried movements, and then had to also undo his cuffs, but then the shirt was off.

I was looking desperately to Miss Havisham for a clue about what I was supposed to do. I had my eyes bugged open to prompt a response. She was still just quietly grinning, apparently enjoying the show both of this young man stripping, as well as my blushing.

Once the shirt was off, she again issued instructions, "Come near my guest," she said. So I was a "guest"? What did that even mean?

"Sit here," she instructed, indicating the table to my right. He leaned, half sitting, thoroughly at ease, back against the strong wooden table, with his hands resting on the table edge. He was now directly between us. I couldn't easily avoid looking at him. Miss Havisham gestured with her eyes towards his naked torso, prompting me to look directly at it.

Oh, my.

His body was athletic and muscular. Not built up, but lithe, and strong. He could have been Michelangelo's David. His stomach was a clearly defined washboard, his chest sported a modest amount of hair, and his shoulders and arms were exquisitely chiseled, effortlessly powerful and beautifully proportionate. He had not been exerting himself, so he had no vulgar veins bursting outwards from his muscles, just beautifully curved masculine perfection. My throat was dry.

Finally, I looked at his face. It was so attractive. Friendly, with intelligent eyes, and he was happily enjoying my admiration of him. That's right, I could read him. It was very simple: he was aware he was attractive, he was being admired, and he liked it, and he would happily follow any further instructions he was given. Nothing complex, no alterior motives. He was having a good time.

Miss Havisham reached around and ran her hand up his abdomen. "Go on, you know you want to touch him," she teased.

I did. I really did.

But this was so weird. I mean, I'd had a couple of boyfriends, I wasn't a virgin, but I had never had a situation like this. It was always the guy sort of getting his way, pushing, shoving, or worse, begging, to get access to me, until I finally let him have what he wanted. I had never experienced this kind of energy before. I didn't know how to act, or what to do.

He smiled at me, as if to encourage me. It was so, so, incredibly hot. He wanted me to touch him, and I wanted, oh yeah, I badly wanted to touch him, but I still had to push my hand upward and forward, as if through molten glass, between myself and his impossibly beautiful body, pushing through any number of taboos and social repressions that constrained me.

I kept eye contact with him. He was kind. He was having fun. He was enjoying the moment. And it was that simple.

My hand seemed extraordinarily small as my palm pressed against his muscular abdomen. My tiny little girlish hand, almost immediately with a mind of its own, moved upward, then down, experiencing the ripples of muscular definition. My other hand went to his forearm, which was as far as I could reach, feeling the sinews of his strength beneath the course layer of masculine hair. I withdrew it again, in case I shouldn't be touching him there, but he smiled, and tugged his head sideways inviting my hand back to rest on his chiselled arm.

He looked over his shoulder to Miss Havisham, who made a small gesture. In response, he took my elbows and signaled that I should stand. It felt like he was lifting me off the chair as I eagerly stood in his grasp.

In an awkward moment as I stood, I found I couldn't push the heavy chair backwards with my legs, and I had to maneuver my legs around beside it to face him, as he held onto my elbows to steady me. I felt like an idiot, fumbling about, exposed as a silly girl who didn't belong so close to such a magnificent man, and I half wished I would just melt and disappear (ok, less than half). But once I was standing in the clear in front of him, he stood up straight, keeping my hands, one on his abdomen and one on his arm, in constant contact with his body by continuing to hold my elbows.

At his every movement, his muscles rippled under my touch, and thought I might faint. The only sensation I could recall remotely close to this was when my cousin had an enormous carpet python and convinced me to hold it. It was completely muscular, and just like this, with every move you could feel the power of its muscles under the skin. I was adolescent at the time I handled that snake, but I've got to admit I've had any number of snake-involved fantasies since. Don't judge me.

He was half a head taller, so I was standing in the middle of his salty, earthy, leathery fragrance, and I was getting lost there. My left hand, almost by itself, ran up his arm to near his shoulder, and I gasped a little at the perfection, the curves, the firmness, the power. My other hand crept up to his chest, and I stood there, struggling to contain myself, my tiny hands resting on this powerful expanse of manliness, full of his scent, watching in his eyes his enjoyment of my enjoyment.

"What's up her dress, Angelo?" Miss Havisham inquired, as though asking how many plates were on the table, or what time it was. I was horrified. Delightfully, terribly, deliciously scandalized. I blushed immediately. How dare she? It was perfect!

He didn't break eye contact with me. He lowered his right arm unhurriedly, and found my thigh. His powerful hand rested there gently, and started, ever so slowly, edging upwards.

I had no choice but to let him investigate. After all, it was an instruction from Miss Havisham, and I wouldn't want to go against that, so don't judge me. So I just stood, breathlessly, with my hands resting against his chest and his bicep, feeling his movements, breathing his aroma, experiencing his enjoyment.

In his eyes I saw a montage of shapes. All of them were feminine shapes and objects, curves, the shape of my thigh that he was touching, but also the shape of a bottom, the side of a breast, a lip, a belly button, a lower leg, a high-heel, the arch of a foot, an eyebrow, a skirt, an earring, eyelashes, nipple, fingernail, wrist, hairband, all flashing across his mind in an erotic light show, but he maintained his gaze into my eyes.

His hand found the hem of my dress, and didn't stop there. He kept sliding it slowly, inevitably, upwards, inside the already inadequate garment. The crossing of this threshold was a deeper thrill. He wasn't touching any especially erogenous place, just my hip, really, but the fact that his hand was progressively intruding on my privacy, dragging upwards on my already indecent hem line, searching out the secrets up and under my clothes, was intoxicating.

In his eyes I was watching Angelo's inner journey of pretty dresses and beautiful underwear, luscious curves and arched backs, full lips, heaving breasts. How was he maintaining his calm exterior? Inside his head was an orgiastic celebration of sexual female forms. But his hand kept its agonizingly slow pace, lifting the side of my dress as he reached the top of my pelvis bone and his fingers slid, one by one, over its edge and into the contour of my waist.

Each finger, as it slid over that precipice, breached a new boundary, demolished a privacy barrier on my body, possessively asserting that he would go whither he chose on my body. The invasion was thrilling and charging me up with erotic energy. His progress also ratcheted up his imagery, of curves and feminine shapes, which were merging and swirling in his mind.

Once his smallest pinkie finger had found my waist, and we stood almost as though dancing the tango, (if indecently, on my part, my dress held obscenely high by Angelo's arm), his hand changed direction and began circling around behind my back, just under the empire waist band of the dress. By now he was revealing far too much of my body to the other men who stood nearby, but I couldn't spare a glance to check on them, so entranced was I in the eyes of my... inspector. His hand encircling me felt like an embrace, and I relished every moment of it.

With his hand fully around my waist at the middle of my back, now having lifted my dress in a positively pornographic way for all the men in the room to gaze at my bottom as they wished, he pulled me strongly against his body. He had me powerfully in his grasp, and I couldn't, even if I had wished to, which I didn't, don't judge me, pull away. I gasped, not in shock, although I hoped it seemed like shock, but in arousal. His right arm had tensed to bring me close, and my hand, resting on his bicep, was treated to the serpentine flex of effortless muscular power.

His naked torso, now pressed against me through my airy, light dress, was warm and strong. In his mind, the imagery was coalescing from what had been a somewhat chaotic melange of female bits and pieces, into what was now more consistently curves associated with bottoms, his next destination. The crease between the cheek and the thigh, the roundness, the peach-like split, as seen from the side, the final small plumpness, right at the focal point of the hole, the snatch, and the labia, the clitoral lid, and on and on into find detail, not just of what these curves look like, but of the exploration of them with the tongue, the whole mouth, both hairless and not, shaved and stubbled, or waxed and smooth, sweet, salty, large and small, skinny and plump. He had some... let's say... fond memories to draw on, apparently.

His hand began to slide downwards. I swallowed.

You might think I would be relieved. After all, as he moved downward, my dress hem was lowering steadily, providing marginally more cover for my exposed bottom. That would surely make me more comfortable in my embarrassment, right?

But the approach of his hand, as it slowly and deliberately traversed the small of my back, was a looming danger to my self control. I was still swimming in his scent, enraptured by his muscular physique, and tingling at his touch. In his eyes I could see that he was happy with my enjoyment, and also that he was enjoying me. It was a sort of feedback loop that was accelerating in a dangerous way.

His hand found the top of my bottom, and my mind swirled at what he might do. Would he run right down the crack of my bottom? I would surely then open it up in a lewd posture of awkwardly protruding my bottom to facilitate his access. You know, if that's what he needed.To be helpful! Don't judge me.

Or would he stop his hand here on the precipice, just teasing me?

He took neither of those options. His hand kept moving downwards, but slid over my left bottom cheek, cupping it. His fingers precariously, dangerously, cheekily, intruding just slightly across to touch the other cheek. Not so much as to find the most intimate place, but enough to make the point that he could, if he chose to, (and if he had, I would have assumed that humiliating pose. Oh, please, let me do it, let me humiliate myself so you can touch my actual bottom... I'm such a disgrace. Don't judge me. Wouldn't blame you if you did, at this stage.).

His hand stopped precariously short of reaching all the way under my cheek where it threatened to find my, by now, highly excited sex. It just stopped there, cupped around my bottom, strong and firm, but gentle. It wasn't touching my bottom's focal point, and it wasn't touching my tingling sex, but it was so close. So close to both. I waited, panting, pressed against his muscular chest, one tiny hand on his strong arm, and the other on his broad chest, staining my neck back to gaze into his joyful eyes, just inhaling his scent, with his hand holding my bottom like he owned me.

"Nothing, Miss," he finally replied, to the question I had forgotten Miss Havisham asking.

"Naughty girl!" Miss Havisham admonished theatrically, catapulting me into a new orbit of erotic fog. How did she do that? Oh yeah. She was in my head. "Thank you, Angelo. You may go. You may all go."

And with that, his face became almost unreadable again, apart from a clear desire to fulfill Miss Havisham's requests. Not for sexual thrill, which is sort of where I went in my obedience, but more out of some high duty, or sense of purpose or something.

He moved his hand casually back to my hip as he swiveled around me, so that he was not trapped between me and the table. His hand was still up my dress, still revealing me to the others, if a little less so from the side, but his movements felt purely practical now. He stepped away backwards, and my hands both followed him, extending as far as they could before reluctantly falling away from his skin. My dress fell back into place in the absence of his strong hand, and I was left there, still hopelessly aroused, revved up, as it were, with nowhere to go. I gasped, just slightly.

Angelo picked up his shirt and jacket with just a hint of swagger (he really did seem to enjoy his role), and followed his fellow waiters, stealing a final look back towards me as he went behind Miss Havisham's back, to toss me a flirtatious wink. I stumbled forward, unaware, until I lost balance, that I had been leaning towards him as he walked away. I felt like a child who had dropped her precious coin into the ocean, or a squirrel discovering all her acorns had been stolen.

The room was empty.

"Perhaps we'll start on something a little less... demanding?" Miss Havisham suggested, not at all disguising her enjoyment at my obvious state. She had been toying with me. It wasn't fair. She knew exactly how to take me here. She was teasing me. I loved it.

Ok, ok. Stop judging me.