In the Hands of Bernadette

"Eager, are we?" she observed as she lifted my skirt off the penis. I decided not to comment on her flushed cheeks and her rapid breathing.

She half-climbed over my right leg and leaned over to reach her bedside table where she fiddled with a dispenser bottle.

"This should help," she said, rubbing her hands and sitting down on my shin. Without panties!

"Don't worry, I've warmed it up," she continued, entirely misinterpreting my reaction. How in the world could I care for her hands, when I felt the softness and warmth and moisture of her vulva on my leg?

A sudden cold and slipperiness that touched my penis startled me. She had put lubricant on her hands, which now slid painlessly up and down my penis.

"Nice, isn't it?" she asked.

"Mmmmh," I replied.

She continued to stroke my penis for a bit, and I got used to the feeling just enough to remember that I was still touching a vulva, then she changed her game. She grabbed the shaft of my penis with her right hand, and gently pressed the palm of her left down onto the tip. Using my penis in a joystick-like fashion, she started drawing circles, spirals, and figures of eight into her left hand. It felt weird at first, and almost a bit insulting, but soon, this new kind of stimulation started having its intended effect. Not only was there continuous varying stimulation of my glans, the lubricant also made her right hand slide up and down the shaft ever so gently.

"Heh, 'joystick'," I managed to utter.

"Joystick indeed," she whispered between breaths.

Her breasts that rose and fell, my shallow breathing, in and out, her vulva sliding forward and backward on my leg, and at the center, the penis drawing shapes onto her left hand, all were synchronized into a rhythm of lust, and I moaned as my hands and feet started to tingle.

"Don't stop," I pleaded before closing my eyes and giving fully into a level of sexual excitement I never felt before. She went faster and faster, the drawing becoming more and more like a line, until she suddenly let go with a guttural moan, collapsing to my right onto the bed, curling up into a fetal position. I was so surprised that I missed my own orgasm: by the time I focused back on my penis, it was already spurting semen all over my - Bernadette's - shirt and skirt.

I felt cheated out of an orgasm even bigger than last week, but I was mesmerized by Bernadette, who lay there, trembling, rocked by the occasional spasm.

"Are you ok?" I asked after a while.

She slowly uncurled herself, crawled up to me, and hugged me tightly around my chest.

"Can you untie me now?" I asked after a while.

She quickly acquiesced, but didn't go back to hugging. Instead, she grabbed me by my wrist and led me downstairs, where she started a discussion on whether men or women had higher intensity orgasms.

The Sunday after, she slowed down as she was approaching me.

"Why don't we run in the opposite direction today?," she proposed. "But we need to run fast, otherwise we won't work up a sweat!"

We sprinted all the way to her place and barely slowed down entering her house, heading straight to the bathroom, shoes and all. She still went and put our running clothes into the washing machine, and yet managed to join me in the shower in record time. I looked at her, as she entered the shower, flushed from the race and the excitement, sweaty and out of breath, and desirable like nothing else in the world, and I suddenly felt silly wearing my boxer briefs. I took them off, and she took off her bikini bottoms. As we stood there under the hot water, hands between each other's legs, I leaned in for a kiss, but she turned her head, let go of me and turned off the water.

I stayed hard as we dried ourselves, so she grabbed my penis instead of my wrist when we left for her room, naked, ignoring the clothes she had laid out for us. I had never followed as willingly.

When we were both in position, her kneeling between my legs, I with wrists tied to the bed frame above my head, she started caressing me. First my face, then my throat, then my chest, She drew waves, circles, and spirals with both hands, as if she was painting my body with arcane glyphs. She never made eye contact, lowering her head such that her damp hair was obscuring my view of her face. So I watched her breasts instead, longing to touch their softness and to feel the hard nipples that continued to point in slightly different directions. From my belly, her hands moved to my thighs, first on the outside, then on the inside, moving closer and closer to my genitals, only to start moving away again at the last moment. She bent over more, so that I only saw her head; droplets of water occasionally dripped onto my belly, forming a semicircle around my throbbing penis. I gasped as she softly blew air at the tip of my penis. Was she trying to make me orgasm with her breath?

She wasn't. All of a sudden, she grabbed the shaft of my penis with her right, used her left to brace herself against my thigh, and took me into her mouth. The warm softness of her mouth was heaven. Her cold wet strands of hair that touched my skin when her lips had slid all the way down to her fist made the feeling even more amazing in contrast. Slowly, she moved her head back up until only the glans remained in her mouth. Then she used her tongue to circle my penis and...

"Hello!" a male voice shouted.

Bernadette froze, and frantically looked around.

"My dad. Why is he here? Where are my clothes?"

She jumped off the bed and raced into the hallway.

"Hello?" I heard her call out from what I guessed must be the bathroom.

"Bernadette, come downstairs, now!"

"Coming! I just finished showering and needed to get dressed," she called, and a few moments later, I heard her running down the stairs.

I heard faint voices, but regardless of how much I strained my ears, I could not make out any words. I became acutely aware of my nakedness, my tied-up-ness, and the dampness of my hair, because my brain tends to notice useless things like that. I tried to twist out of the knots around my wrists, but stopped again, fearing to make any noise. If her dad found me like this, it was not going to end well. Footsteps were coming closer and closer - and grew fainter again. I heard nothing for what felt forever, until I finally heard voices again, one female, one male. All of a sudden, Bernadette cried out.

"Why are you not wearing any underwear?" her father shouted.

"Because I'm doing laundry," she shouted back. After a pause, she continued: "This means all my underwear is being washed right now!"

He said something that I didn't understand, Bernadette said no, he insisted, Bernadette shouted "No!"

"In this house I decide!" her father shouted back. "Now go to your room and get ready!"

Bernadette's face was like a wax mask, pale and motionless. There were tears in her eyes. She held a finger in front of her lips, and untied me in a hurry. She ushered me into her walk-in closet, pushing me to sit in a pile of stuffed animals, all of them pokemons. She slid the door shut, but there remained a gap that offered me a good view of her bed. She took off her clothes - the shirt and skirt from the bathroom - and sat onto the bed, right where I had been sitting before. Then we both waited.

When her father entered the room, Bernadette grabbed the hollows of her knees to pull apart her legs. From my vantage point, I could see both her vulva and her anus. What was going on here?

"You know well that we accept that you are not joining us for church after what happened, but the other rules remain in effect."

Bernadette nodded.

"Tell me the rules," her father commanded. I could not see him, and I didn't dare move, so I had to imagine how he would be standing there, looking down on Bernadette.

"I obey my parents. I keep no secrets from my parents. I dress modestly. I remain chaste until marriage, and do not defile my own body with my hands. I decide who I would like to date, and my parents decide whether the person is suitable. I decide what to study and I never fail any class and my parents cover room, board, and other necessities," Bernadette listed mechanically.

"Exactly. How is walking around without underwear being dressed modestly, Bernadette?"

"I was home alone after my run, and taking a shower. All my underwear was in the laundry. Even so, nobody would have seen me if you hadn't come home early because of mom."

"What if it hadn't been your mother and I? What if it had been some boy who wanted to prank you and lift your skirt? You cannot walk around without underwear."

"Are you telling me I need to buy more underwear, so that I don't have to wash all of them at the same time?"

There was a pause.

"You are not wrong," her dad answered eventually. "Ok, then."

I smiled proudly. Despite sitting on her bed in this obscene position, Bernadette had still managed to score a win.

"Now let's confirm you have remained chaste," her dad said matter-of-factly.

He slowly pushed his index finger into her mouth, until she gagged.

"Good," he said, apparently satisfied. "The gag reflex is strong as ever."

He moved his glistening finger down between her legs, sliding between the labia, and curving inward. Bernadette flinched.

"Still intact," he concluded. "But why are you wet, Bernadette?"

"I told you had just stepped out of the shower when you came home. I didn't have the time to properly dry myself," she answered with a strained voice.

"Is that so," he mused.

They remained quiet. Bernadette kept spreading her knees and stared straight ahead. Her father's finger remained where it was, moving slightly in rhythm with Bernadette's breathing. After a while, Bernadette's cheeks became flushed and her breathing became heavier, and so did her dad's.

"I guess you were right," he eventually said hoarsely. He cleared his throat and continued: "Let's continue, then."

Bernadette held her breath. Her dad slid his finger down further until he touched her anus. With a swift push, he sank his finger two knuckles deep. Bernadette grunted in discomfort, but didn't let go of her knees.

"Good. Tight as ever. I'm glad that you have protected the sanctity of your body," he said, pulling out his index finger. He wiped it with a tissue from her nightstand.

"Now let's make sure you do not give into temptation to defile your body. Wrists!" he commanded.

Bernadette let go of her knees and held her wrists up to the bed frame, where he tied them with the strip of silk.

"Time to cool down and reflect. And shave those legs all the way, they're disgusting," he said. Then he left. Bernadette sat there, breathing heavily. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

I kept watching. There she sat on her bed, arms above her head, which made her breasts stand out even more. There were several folds in the skin of her belly. Her legs were still spread, and her vulva glistened with moisture. She was quietly sobbing now.

I was wondering whether I should go and console her. I could kiss her tears away, caress her breasts, caress her belly, caress her legs, caress her vulva, make her forget what her dad had just done to her. I am still wondering today whether it would have changed anything. But in the end, I stayed hidden in the closet among the plushies she had hidden away like me.

"Bernadette, the washing machine is beeping," her dad called after an eternity.

"I'd like to come but I'm a bit tied up here," she shouted back. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Maybe it was the tension that made her reply seem so funny.

I'd love to say that there was some daring escape through the window, with her dad almost catching me if not for a clever diversion by Bernadette, but it ended in a bit of a let-down. When her dad untied her, he told her that he was heading to the pharmacy for some medicine. Bernadette went and brought back the clean clothes. When we eventually walked past her parents' bedroom, I heard her mother snore. We didn't speak a word.

We never spoke about that day, partly because there was more important news. My parents were going to be gone the following weekend,

"That's kind of you, but next weekend I'm spending time with my girlfriends," she said, turning down my invitation. I was in a bad mood for the rest of the Monday run.

"I've talked to my girlfriends. You can come, too, if you don't mind being around a bunch of girls," she said when we met on Tuesday. I was walking on clouds the rest of the week.

We met on Saturday at her best friend's parents' place. It was shortly before noon, and I was the last to arrive, as I had to finish some chores. Athena, Bernadette's friend, opened the door. Athena was a bit taller than I, and a lot wider. She had dark brown eyes, and black, thick-rimmed glasses. Her two black braids started about half way on her head, and reached the small of her back. Her upper arms were as wide as my thighs. Both her shirt and ankle-length skirt were black. Athena stepped out of the doorway to let me in, and I felt as if I was entering some club under the suspicious glance of the bouncer.

Athena ushered me to the kitchen, and Bernadette introduced me to the two other women: Betul was chopping vegetables at the kitchen table with her back to the wall, Ah Yeong was standing at the hearth frying spring rolls. Betul stood up to shake my hand and I was surprised to see that she was even taller than Athena. She looked like a model, except for her bushy black almost-unibrow. Her fingers were long and slender and soft, but her handshake was firm. Ah Yeong just turned around to wave hi, and then returned to focus on the spring rolls. She was Asian, about the same height as Bernadette and very slim. Her long black hair reached halfway down her back. She wore a ribbed knit dress that went half-way down her thighs, and black tights. I knew I shouldn't, but my gaze lingered on her subtle curves.

At the behest of Bernadette, I sat down at the kitchen table opposite Betul, and assisted her. I had expected to impress everybody with my vegetable chopping skills, so I was a bit disappointed to find that Betul was in an entirely different league. The speed and accuracy of how she handled a knife were impressive. Still, Bernadette praised me as well, which was a comfort.

At lunch, I learned that Athena was working as a nurse at the same hospital where Betul was doing an internship as a medical student. Betul was training as a surgeon, and considered specializing in plastic surgery. "Not that you need it," remarked Athena, to which Betul replied that she was not going to operate on herself but on others. I was not sure whether she was being mean to Athena, or just oblivious to the compliment.

Ah Yeong was studying theology. According to her, her parents' homeland of Korea had the fastest-growing Christian community in the world, and she planned to go there as a missionary. Athena was sitting next to Ah Yeong, and frequently found an excuse to touch her in some way, and each time, Ah Yeong froze momentarily and looked down, though after a while she seemed to get more comfortable with Athena's touches.

I spoke mostly with Betul, while Bernadette talked to Athena and a bit to Ah Yeong. I learned that Betul's parents had been immigrants from Turkey, that she had done some modeling, but found it too boring, and that she was preparing for an exam, and thus glad for a momentary distraction. We talked about the challenges of integrating as a second-generation immigrant, because that was a big concern at the time, and she explained in gory detail what it was like to open up someone's belly. We got along splendidly.

After lunch, the women - who I learned liked to call their circle ABBA after the Swedish pop band - wanted to paint nails. Athena had found some cool patterns in a magazine they wanted to try out, where they would blend different nail polish in a gradient. We moved from the kitchen to the living room, where Athena had spread two picnic blankets onto the snow-white carpet next to the glass coffee table, and brought another one to cover the coffee table. I guess the pristine white leather sofas were taboo; in fact the entire living room looked more like something out of a catalog than a room to live in - everything was either white, black, or glass. Apparently, Athena's dad was a designer and her mother an architect.

I was chosen for their first attempt. I was sat in the center of the blankets, and soon, all of them were kneeling around me working on my fingernails, two women on each side: Athena and Ah Yeong on my left, Bernadette and Betul on my right. Soon, I had four painted nails, ranging from Ah Yeong's decent attempt to Betul's masterpiece. Encouraged, the four women started painting their own nails, and encouraged me to do my other nails. It was harder than it looked. It was also a lot of fun. There were encouraging "aah"s and "ooh"s, tips for me on how to not get nail polish all over my fingers, and it really felt as if I was one of the group.

When we were done, Athena declared it was time for a break, and instructed Ah Yeong to get a bottle of white wine and olives from the kitchen. To my chagrin, Betul decided that it was time for her to head back home to study, and that alcohol was not going to be of any help in that. She did let us convince her to stay for just a bit longer to raise a glass to our beautiful nails, which did turn into another half hour of chatting, though she did not take more than a sip of the wine. Eventually, Athena and Bernadette went to see her off, while Ah Yeong and I took care of the rest of the olives and the last of the wine. Athena and Bernadette had apparently been thirsty.

"I wonder what they have planned for us," Ah Yeong mused. Her face was slightly flushed.

"What do you mean?" I wondered.

"Ah, they are always scheming together. But let's not worry our pretty heads about it, yes?" She put her left hand over my right and finished her glass. "What do you plan on studying?" she asked. Had she just given me a compliment?

Her hand was warm and soft. I started talking about my plans to go into computer science, when we heard others come back. Ah Yeong jerked back her hand as if she had been doing something forbidden.

Bernadette carried a bag with the logo of a lingerie store, and looked like she was ready to tie me to her bed again. Athena also carried a bag, but I did not recognize the brand.

"Let's continue our makeover!," Athena declared. "Ah Yeong, what do your legs look like?"

Ah Yeong blushed hard and lowered her head, saying nothing.

"Come on, take off these thighs!" Athena ordered.

Ah Yeong shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"Are you embarrassed?" asked Bernadette. "Look, I'll take my pants off as well, and so will Bastian."

I was about to protest, when I saw Bernadette's imploring look. So I shrugged and started taking off my pants as well. I noticed that Bernadette had shaved her legs completely.

Only when Athena had taken off her pants, too, Ah Yeong finally complied. She still avoided eye contact with anyone. Was she embarrassed because her legs were almost as hairy as mine?

I had little time to dwell on Ah Yeong, though. Bernadette came back with a pot of a sticky, golden paste that she applied all over my legs with a wooden spatula. It was comfortably warm, and smelled like flowers. Bernadette moved to do the same for Ah Yeong, and Athena positioned herself at my feet, smiling. As she reached forward to my upper thighs, I noticed that both Ah Yeong and Bernadette were watching me intently. Then, I screamed. Athena had ripped the dried paste - wax, of course - off my right thigh. Blinking away my tears, I looked at the small piece of hairless leg that had emerged from underneath the wax.

"This might also hurt a bit," Athena said merrily as she reached for the next bit of wax. I closed my eyes and tried not to scream.