Jenny showed up at the door with a question. “What´s it all about? Something special?” She was still dressed for the office. Dana had changed into her usual t-shirt with very short shorts. Her breasts pressed the tight material, molding it to their shape, and the shorts exposed the curves of her buttocks.
“No,” Dana said, “I was just rushed as hell at the office, but I wanted to see you, to talk. Sorry if I sounded funny. You look great.”
“Thanks. Well, no, just wondered. Not a problem, anyway.” They walked into the living room. “Where´s Ed?”
“Glass of wine? Or beer?” Dana asked, waiting for a reply. “I´m going for wine. You don´t answer, that´s what you get.” Jenny nodded assent, followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while Dana poured two glasses. Her skirt followed the sweep of her thighs and showed her pretty legs.
“Ed´s working tonight.” Dana said. “Often does on Thursdays – he likes to get things cleared up, because Friday is always crazy and he hates working late on Fridays. How´s Sid?”
“Pretty good, I guess. He seems a little edgy lately, and I´m not sure why. Did you notice anything at Wednesday?”
“No, not really. I wasn´t talking to him much. Let´s sit out on the patio.” She put the bottle in a cooler and carried it through the living room. “Give me a hand with the door.” Jenny opened the slider and Dana took a seat at the table, putting the cooler in the shade beside her chair. The warm air was fresh and scented with freshly mown grass from a nearby yard. Jenny joined her, also sitting in the sun, and where she could see the little garden that filled most of the narrow space with flowers and bushes.
Jenny sipped the wine. “Say, I really like this. It´s not sweet, really, but it´s not like all those whites you get at bars.”
“I like it. It´s a Graves. It´s not really sweet, as you say, but you can taste the fruit.”
“That´s what it is. Fruity. Yeah, I like it. What´s on your mind, Dana?”
“Hey, look, I really just wanted to talk,” Dana replied. “Chat a little. I only seem to see you at Wednesday, and you can´t talk about much there. You got a deadline?”
“Well, not too late. I don´t want Sid to feel neglected.”
“He paying more attention to you now? Last time you were here, you said he wasn´t taking care of you.”
“Well, sort of.” Jenny looked into her glass, and Dana dropped the subject.
“Mostly, Jen, I wanted to tell you how great you look. It´s been about a month since you were here that Saturday, and I´ve seen you at Wednesday and now and then at the market. You really look great. I´m kind of surprised.”
Jenny looked at her sharply. “Why surprised? Didn´t you think I´d do what you told me?”
Dana seemed surprised. “Hey, @I don´t always do what I´m told. Good advice is everywhere, not everyone takes it. And, as I said at the time, I was only guessing. You @are pretty, but I hadn´t really seen @how pretty you are ´till now. You´ve made a real change.”
“Thanks. Sorry, I guess I´m edgy, too.” She smiled and looked at Dana. “You know, when I left that day, I said I was going to walk downtown, see how it felt?”
“Did you?”
Jenny´s face lit up. “Yeah. I parked behind the Courthouse and walked all up and down Pearl Street and back. Every time I passed a window, I looked in and said my mantra. You know, I was amazed. I did look terrific. I felt terrific – somehow going without panties or bra really turned me on. And you know what? People looked at me. Normally, they didn´t, you know, at least up to then. I used to be able to walk down the street like the Invisible Woman. That day, even the women looked at me. That´s what did it for me, you know. Guys will look at any woman at least once. I´d figured that, with my nipples sticking out like that, they were bound to. And the guys did look at me, only they weren´t really focusing on my tits, they were trying to make eye contact. I liked that. And, then, several women looked at me, gave me the once over. Some of them smiled at me! I couldn´t believe it.”
“I can, Jenny. You´re a great looking woman. And the times I´ve seen you since then, you´ve really looked terrific. Strong and happy, and it shows – makes me feel good because @you do ... You give up bras? I notice you´re not wearing one now.”
“Well, pretty much. Actually, I usually wear one to the office – I´m not really sure why, because there are two or three girls who don´t and some of the others wear sheer blouses that show off their bras – I @really don´t understand that. Anyway, I wore one today, but after you called, I went and took it off.”
“How come?” Dana asked, stretching and turning in her chair. “You didn´t think I´d care, did you?”
“No,” Jenny watched her friend and toyed with the buttons on her blouse. “I just realized that I wasn´t comfortable. I´ve been going without, evenings and weekends now, ever since we talked.” She stopped and considered a moment, then grinned at Dana. “I think I´m probably going to give it up altogether, get some more things that fit well but aren´t see-through. But I do wear panties. Walking around downtown that Saturday was a wonderful feeling, but it got me hot, and I don´t like feeling juicy down my leg.”
Dana laughed. “Yeah, that´s a pain. Try jamming a tissue in there. Works fine, but it looks silly as hell. Of course, no one could see.”
“I´ll keep that in mind. But panties are pretty and they´re practical and – well, you know.”
Dana nodded as she took another sip of wine. The sun glanced off the glass. She was sitting directly in the setting sun. She looked at Jenny, “Got another hour or so of sun. You mind if I take my shirt off?”
“Mind if I join you?” Jenny asked in return. Dana shook her head and stripped off her shirt. Jenny followed suit, undoing her blouse and taking off her skirt. They settled down again, naked but for Jenny´s panties and Dana´s short shorts.
“You been going around naked much?” Dana asked.
“Yeah, quite a bit. Really throws Sid, though. Can´t understand it. He doesn´t seem to like it, but I´ll tell you something – I do.”
“Funny. Ed loves it. You know I do, too.”
“Yeah. How come? I mean, it´s not how most of us grew up. I always thought naked was nasty, lewd. I don´t feel that way now, but the training was strong and I do wonder sometimes. How come?”
“How come?” Dana echoed, “Well, I always spent my summers in the south of France, you know? And the French go topless at the beach. But the place where we – my folks – have their apartment is in a little city on the ocean where clothing is optional.”
“Optional? You mean it´s a nudist colony?”
“Well yes, but when you say nudist, it makes me think nakedness is compulsory. Optional means you just wear clothes when you feel like it. Plenty of people there wear clothes all the time, especially the people who run the stores. Sometimes teenagers at the beach, too.” Dana paused, thinking back. “Remember what that was like, suddenly getting breasts and pubic hair? Even some girls who´ve been naked all their lives get weird about it... And, if it´s cold, or if you´re going out to dinner and want to dress up, you put something on.
“Anyway, it´s a whole city with banks and grocery stores and Laundromats – everything. It´s right on this long, long beach. I´ve spent every summer there ever since I can remember and most of the time I was naked as a jay bird, and so was everyone else I knew.”
“Your parents, too?”
“Yes, and all their friends. And our guests. We´d get up in the morning and usually not put on a stitch until we went out for dinner or something. All the guys and girls I hung out with – the same thing. We´d go down to the beach and play and horse around in the sun and walk miles down the beach. Never a stitch of clothing. Unless, of course, it got cloudy or rainy or something. It´s kind of funny to see naked people in the rain, walking around with umbrellas.”
Denny laughed. “I´ll bet. But I just can´t imagine going to the bank or the post office stark naked. It would take some getting used to, but once you did... Now I see why you´re like you say, ‘comfortable in your skin´.” She settled back in her chair, put one leg over the arm. She wore tap pants, and Dana took a good look at her crotch. “How´d that... Uh, you don´t have to answer this, but what about sex? Isn´t that... I mean going around naked with the boys...”
“Well, it´s different, I´ll tell you that. But people there, in Europe, are a lot less worried about sex than we are. Sex is natural, good – on average, anyway. Everyone does it, and they expect that kids will start doing it when they get the urge. It´s a good thing, not wrong. Unless, of course, someone makes it wrong, like a church, ... or rape.”
“So, you...” Jenny was groping, but curious.
“So I had a lot of buddies who were boys. And usually, after lunch, when the sun was hot as hell, we´d go home and stay in the shade. Of course, the older we got, the more we fooled around with each other´s bodies. One day, I got the boy who came with me hard and wet. That made me wet, too, and I asked him to screw me, and I loved it. After that, I usually had a boy in bed with me every afternoon, and it was great.”
“What about your girl friends? Weren´t they jealous?”
“Well, we were all pretty open about it – and careful. We had a group that sort of agreed to it, especially since we all went back home after the summer to different places, had different friends there. That made it easier, ‘cause we knew these weren´t long-term things. We were all screwing all the boys, but we tried not to sleep with someone who was the special crush of one of our friends. Generally, we changed around a lot, without too much trouble. Sometimes a gang of us would go down to the beach late at night and we´d all go at it as long as the guys could get it up.”
“You ever do it with the girls?”
“Not very often, but I sure didn´t mind it. It was funny, though. One day, a girl friend and I brought a couple of boys up to my place. And we sat there talking and talking and talking until I was going nuts. I mean, I wanted to get laid, and she just kept on talking. So, I took her out on the balcony and asked what was going on. She said she´d never done a foursome and didn´t know how to start. So we just went ahead from there.” Both women laughed.
“Boy, that´s sure different,” Jenny said, looking into her glass. She reached for the bottle and filled the glass again. “No wonder you feel so sure of yourself. You´re happy with your body, you´re happy with yourself, and you love sex. Not all that common.”
“Actually, I suppose it´s un-American,” Dana said. “But I think I was damn lucky to have grown up like that. It´s taken a lot of the anxiety out of my life. Just that many less things I need to worry about – except, of course, it´s strange to look back and see how different I am.”
“Don´t regret it. You could have had it a lot worse.” Jenny took a long swallow. Dana poured more for herself. Jenny looked at her. “You know that mantra you gave me? I changed it.” Dana looked a question. “It´s ‘Tall. Straight. Smart.´ I added, ‘Strong´.”
“Sounds good to me. Why?”
“I´ve always had this problem that I do whatever people tell me. That´s why I sort of jumped at you before, when you were surprised that I... Hell... I still have trouble thinking I haven´t done what someone else wants me to. But this has not been a good way for me to live.”
“Well, obedience and stuff like that aren´t usually too much a bad thing,” Dana noted.
“Like anything else that´s good, you can carry it too far. I´m talking about submissive.”
“That´s different. What do you mean, exactly?”
“Well, I was taught to do what I was told. You know, the folks were pretty strict. Now, today – I don´t think they meant it quite the way I took it. Anyway in junior high ...”
Dana leaned forward, took Jenny´s hand. “You don´t need to...”
Jenny shook her head. “No, it´s okay. I want to tell you this. I´ve done a lot of therapy about this, and you know what? It wasn´t ‘till we talked a month ago that it all really began to come together. What you told me – my mantra, I guess – made me sort of turn the corner. And I want you to know.
“In junior high – I was what, fifteen? This guy asked me out. He took me to a movie, and after, when we got in his truck, he said, ‘Take your panties off.´ Just like that. You know what? I did. And he said, ‘Put them in the glove compartment.´ I opened it, and there were three other pairs of girl´s panties there. You can guess how I felt.”
“I´ll say. How come... No, go on. How did you feel?”
“I felt like trash, Dana. But I put my panties in there and closed it up. When we got where he was going, he parked and pulled me over and kissed me hard. Then, he made me play with him until he was all wet. Then he fucked me; took my virginity.”
“Shit.” Dana said.
“Know what? I thought he was wonderful. He just stuck it in me, fucked me ´til he came, pulled it out, zipped up and took me home. And me? I was in heaven.”
“Why, for God´s sake? He raped you.”
“Almost, but I thought that was what sex was all about. A few days later he took me out again, and again. He fucked me in the ass, taught me to do it on top, made me blow him. Then one day I was at my locker in school, and I heard him around the corner talking to a buddy of his. He said, ‘Why don´t you take Jenny out? She´ll do anything you tell her; I´ve got her all broken in, you can have her´.”
“Oh, Jen...”
“Let me finish. So, I went out with this other guy, and the first time I got in the car with him, I just took off my panties and put them in the glove compartment. He said, ‘You don´t need to do that. I´m not the same as him.´ But, he fucked me anyway, only this time he took long enough that I got really hot – didn´t come, you understand, but I was really hot. And I tried to get him going again, but he wasn´t interested. He took me home, and I had to jerk off – first time for me – in order to go to sleep.”
“So, how long did this go on?” Dana asked. She was sitting straight in her chair, listening to every word.
“Quite a while.” Jenny held out her glass, and Dana filled it again, then her own. “The second guy kept me on for a while, then passed me on to another. I felt more and more like a whore. Seemed like any of them could just tell me to spread my legs, and I would.”
“Then? Well, I´m surprised it didn´t turn you off sex altogether. Something happened, didn´t it?”
“Yeah. I met this guy. It was in the summer, we´d gone away, so the regular guys weren´t around. And I met Timmy at the beach one day. We talked, I met him again and we talked some more. I kept on talking to him, seeing him. He was gentle, straight, not demanding. One day, he asked me out, and I said ‘Yes´.”
“How was it? Did it work out?”
“Yes, and no. It was great. He always talked to me like I was a person. He was a little scared to touch me, until I kissed him and put his hand on my breast. Then he was thoughtful and nice. Held me, kissed me until I was so hot I was ready to rape @him. Then, he took me home and told me what a nice time he´d had, and could we do it again.”
“Threw you, didn´t it?”
“Yeah. Anyway, the next time we went out, he got me all hot to trot again, and I managed to get him to... Well, what happened was, for the first time, I got made love to. He got me hot, he made me feel wonderful, he touched me like he wanted me, he even got me to take my clothes off. You know, with those other guys, they only just got my panties off. Well, Timmy stripped me, we got naked together and we made love. And I came, and I came, and I came, and I was still coming when he did. What heaven! I never forgot it and I´ve always loved good sex since then.”
“What happened? Somehow, I don´t think it was ‘happy ever after´.”
“Wasn´t. You´re right. At the end of the summer, Timmy went back to wherever it was he came from, and the same bunch of guys as before took me back and expected me to spread my legs on command. For a while, I did. But I´m not so dumb I didn´t realize I was getting screwed in more ways than one. So, I tried to get away.”
“Bet that wasn´t easy.”
“No. By that time everyone in school knew I was fucking those guys. They traded me around, of course. Told me who it was I was supposed to screw, and when. If I said ‘No´ they´d just leave me alone. No one else would come near me, and by the end of a week, I´d be so lonely and so miserable I would go find one of them and ask him to do me, to fuck me. I was so miserable that my folks noticed.”
“I take it they weren´t all that helpful.”
“Well, they cared about me, in their way. They were proud that I did well in school and glad I didn´t cause them any trouble – but really they just wanted me to make them look good. If they´d known how I lived, they would have died. But they could tell I wasn´t happy, so they asked what was wrong.”
“You didn´t tell them.”
“Hell, no. They couldn´t have handled it. Their goody-goody daughter a whore for five or six guys? Spread her legs for anyone who told her to? No, I told them I wanted a change, I wanted to go to a school where I´d have to work harder to get the good grades. That made them feel good, and they had enough money so they could send me to a private school. They sent me away, and I got away from those guys.”
“But it didn´t really help, did it?”
“Couple of problems. By that time, I was pretty much a confirmed submissive. And I´d learned that, under the right circumstances I´m a pretty horny girl. Put someone like that in a girls´ school, and you get...”
“That´s why you asked me if I did it with girls.”
“Yes. But, somehow the girls I got together with in school weren´t as mean as the guys. We had sex a lot, and I was always sort of a ‘step ´n fetch it´ for them, but it wasn´t so degrading, though I know now it could have been. And part of that – how I avoided that – was I did really well in school. And even though the girls knew I was a sexual doormat for them, they needed my smarts to help them through school. And, after I graduated and before I went to college, I asked my doctor – she was a real friend – for some help. She referred me to a shrink, and I saw someone all through college and for a long time after. Been a while, now.”
“So, you came to me for help with your self-image. Thank you, you make me feel good... Sun´s going down.” Dana put her shirt back on. Jenny just sat there, her body still lit by the fading rays.
“I´ve known for a long time about my submissive side, and how I need to be assertive and all that. It never occurred to me that it affected the way I look. You told me that, and the mantra you gave me really plays into what my therapist always told me. It works. Mostly.”
“Where is it not working?”
Jenny finally slipped her blouse back on her shoulders, hung her skirt over her legs. “Sid. He doesn´t seem to be able to handle the way I am any more.”
“Is it that he wants a doormat, and you´re getting uppity?”
“Yeah, I guess. I love Sid, I guess. He´s always been good to me. He really cares for me, wants to protect me, sort of. And he´s a pretty good lover, usually makes sure I come when he screws me. But...”
“He screws on his schedule, tells you when he wants it? Is that it?”
“That´s part of it. And, he doesn´t seem to like me to be making my own decisions. Always we´ve talked it over and...”
“He´s told you what to do.”
“Yeah. He´s real careful to tell me to do what he really thinks is best for me – give him credit. But the bottom line is, I´ve done what he tells me. And I´m not doing that any more. It´s upsetting to him.”
“Sure it is. What do you think´s going to happen? Can you work it out? Do you want to?”
“I don´t know, you know? Take the business about wearing a bra. I really wear it because Sid says I should. He likes it well enough when I´m braless around him, but he really doesn´t want other people to see my nipples. Says I look tarty. So, I said to him, ‘It´s okay for me to look that way for you, but you think it´s wrong when other people see it.´ Of course, he tried to deny it, but that´s where it comes down.”
“How do you see it? Sitting here, I can see your breasts and they look pretty. When you´ve got that blouse on, I just see the nipples skate around a little and, when you walk, there´s a little movement. I think it looks great – womanly, sexy, but not obvious.”
“Yes. I took a lot of time looking in the mirror, bouncing up and down, and I look in the store windows when I say my mantra.” She grinned over the edge of her glass. “I like the way I look. It´s not obvious. And I discovered I like to feel my breasts move, like you do. I´m happy with it. Sid isn´t. And he´s not happy that I don´t always want to screw on his schedule. I´ve gotten so that, if I don´t feel like it, I tell him. Doesn´t happen too often, but it does. Really gets him upset, even though he hides it.”
“Have you talked with him about it? Can he see that it´s a D&S game?”
“I´ve tried to talk with him, but he doesn´t really feel comfortable. I point out that I have a say in when I get laid, that he has to respect my needs, be willing to wait until I want @him sometimes. I get a lot of head-nodding and ‘Uh-huhs´ but the next time it happens – when I say ‘no´ again – he sulks. And don´t even mention the psychology of it. He´s allergic to that, won´t hear anything about – he calls it ‘mumbo-jumbo´.”
“Doesn´t sound too promising, Jenny.”
“Well, I´ll keep on trying. He´s a good guy, just got a dominance thing he doesn´t want to face. Well, I had to face my problem, he´s either going to face his or...” Jenny´s voice trailed off uncertainly.
“Well, either he´s going to leave or you are. Is that what´s worrying you?” Dana got up from her chair. “Getting chilly, let´s go inside.” She picked up the cooler and the empty glasses. Jenny did up a button on her blouse so she could put her skirt on over it. They went inside, closing the door against the on-coming cool of evening.
In the kitchen, Dana asked, “A little more wine?”
Jenny shook her head. “No, thanks. That´s what´s got me. Yes – I´ve come too far to go back, Dana. I don´t have anywhere to go but ahead. And Sid... Well, I guess, if he won´t come with me, he´ll get left behind. I really hate that.”
Dana went to her, put her hands on Jenny´s waist. “Promise me one thing, Jen. Don´t give in. It won´t be worth it after all you fought for.”
Jenny pulled Dana close to her, held her. “Thanks. Thanks.” They hugged for a long moment. Jenny pulled her face back to look into Dana´s eyes. “I guess that´s what I came over for. Your strength, your love, your help.”
Dana smiled. “I asked you, you know.”
“Doesn´t matter. You know when I need you. Thanks.” Her eyes glistening, Jenny pulled away and did up her blouse, ran her hands through her short haircut.
“Well, back to the real world. Think I´ll go home and make a nice dinner for Sid. He´s a good guy, and he´s been good to me. I hope it works out.”
When the door had closed behind Jenny, Dana stood looking out the window. Jenny strode down the walk, tall and straight. ‘I sure hope it does,´ Dana thought, ‘but I doubt it.´