“Really, I'm hardly qualified to say, my dear,” he replied, as he gingerly fingered the garment. “All I can say is that it seems to be well made, but whether by hand or machine I cannot say.”
“The ones I've got on are even prettier, Mr. Heely. I don't mind if you see them on me. I want you to see how pretty they are and how well they fit me.”
So saying, I raised my dress until a goodly portion of lace filigree and cambric panty leg, to say nothing of quite a bit of flesh, was revealed. Slowly I pivoted around on my toes so that Mr. Heely might judge both the dainty workmanship of the garment, and in addition such physical allurements as might catch his eye.
His face flushed slightly, and he half-averted his gaze, but his next words assured me that I had not missed the mark at which I had aimed.
“My child, it is your pretty limbs which lend beauty to the garment. I have never seen a more charming picture.”
Visibly affected, he extended his arms and drew me again upon his lap. His arm prevented my dress from falling into place, and as I made no effort to adjust it I found myself seated across his knees with my legs exposed to the tops of my stockings and higher. I laid an arm over his shoulder and cuddled against him.
Soon I felt a hand lightly caressing my knee. It moved tenderly back and forth over the silken surface of my hose. I lay quietly with my head against his shoulder, my eyes half-closed. The hand moved higher and I sensed the tremor of its touch in a timid caress which dwelt a moment upon the bare flesh above the stocking. It receded downward to the knee, and after a brief hesitation again advanced until finally the palm lay cupped over the rounded curve of bare flesh. His other hand meanwhile passed under my arm, lay quietly and unobtrusively over one of my breasts.
Seated thus, with nothing but the thin material of my panties and his own garments between the sensitive areas of our respective bodies I would have easily perceived anything in the nature of a muscular reaction to the erotic incitation to which Mr. Heely was now being subjected.
That there was none confirmed my suspicion that either through physical weakness or possibly a purely mental inhibition he was incapacitated sexually in the more material sense of the word. For him naught remained but such secondary exultations as might have their birth in psychic stimulation, the last dispensation of benevolent old Mother Nature who, tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, concedes that minor consolation, a measure of bliss in the mere presence of contemplation of pleasure through the awakening of an echo, or the touching of a responsive chord in our sensibilities.
Certain now of my ground, I advanced boldly.
Snuggling closer to him, and tightening my clasp about his shoulder, I murmured in a low voice:
“Mr. Heely, you have been so good to me, there is something I must tell you. I'm awfully ashamed to, but I think you should know, so you can tell me what to do. There is no one else I can ask, I just couldn't speak of it to anyone else but you…”
His hand clenched about the flesh of my leg.
“What is it, Jessie, dear? I can't imagine anything you could tell me which should cause you to feel ashamed. As you know, I want you to feel perfectly free to tell me anything that troubles you.”
“Oh, Mr. Heely, when you know what it is, you may be terribly shocked, and not care for me anymore. I'm so ashamed to tell you I don't know whether I can get up the courage or not…”
I dabbed at my eyes with a tearful gesture.
“But, my little Jessie!” exclaimed the now quite perturbed Mr. Heely, “I assure you from the depths of my heart that there is nothing, absolutely nothing which would lessen my regard for you. It hurts me that you can even entertain such a thought!”
“Oh, Mr. Heely!” And here my sobs must have been quite convincing in their rendition. “You think I'm a nice girl, and I'm not! I have the most terrible longings when I'm with you, sometimes I can't sleep at all after you've gone, and other times I have dreams, oh, such dreams, they wake me up and I lie in the dark thinking, and it gets worse until, finally, well, I just have to… have to…!”
I paused, and after waiting a long moment for me to continue, Mr. Heely whispered tensely:
“Have to… have to what, dear?”
“Oh, don't make me say it! You must guess… without my putting it in words… I don't want to do it… they say it ruins a girl's health… but I just can't sleep until I make that feeling go away! Now, don't you hate me, Mr. Heely?”
The tension of his hand on my leg relaxed, and the hand moved gently back and forth over the flesh. I peeped at him through my eyelashes; his face was flushed.
“My dear little baby,” he murmured in a strained voice, “and you thought telling me this would lessen my regard for you? Don't you remember that I told you the other night that certain emotions and impulses in healthy young bodies were quite natural? Of course, I never dreamed that I was unintentionally contributing to them, but I still don't think it is serious enough to upset yourself about, except insofar as your rest and sleep is concerned. That…” he added in a troubled voice, “is something we'll have to think about.”
“Then you don't think I'm bad for having those feelings, Mr. Heely?”
“Nonsense, child! Every normal person has gone through the same experience in the period of adolescence. But you must exercise self-control and not fall into habits which will undermine your health.”
“But… but… Mr. Heely, if I don't do that, it happens anyway while I'm asleep! When I wake up, it's too late to stop it from happening!
“Oh, Mr. Heely there is something… I think… I know… would be good for me. It would sooth my nerves and take that feeling away… if only… but how can I ask you such a thing!”
“How can you continue to question my willingness to do anything in my power for you, my little Jessie?” the poor man insisted reproachfully. “If I am in any way to blame for a condition which can only be relieved by discontinuing my visits I'll have to make the sacrifice. Do you think it would be better for you if I didn't come?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh, no, no, Mr. Heely. That wouldn't keep me from thinking of you; it would only make things a hundred times worse!”
“What did you have in mind then, my dear?” he asked, vastly relieved. “Speak frankly; I'll not be offended!”
“Oh, Mr. Heely, it's something… it really happened in a dream once. I felt so much better that way than when I… you know what I mean… and the bad feeling didn't come back for a long time, but…” and I hid my face against his shoulder, “it's dreadful to ask you such a thing!”
“Let's consider that after we know what it is!” he urged tensely.
“If you… if you… oh, Mr. Heely… it sounds so terrible… but if you would… if you would just put your hand there where the feeling starts… if you would just put your hand there for a moment each night before you leave… I know the feelings would finish and go away and I wouldn't have to do that in the night!”
A tremor passed through his body, his arms gripped me convulsively, and though he spoke with forced calmness, I knew he was in exquisite torment.
“You think that would calm your nerves?” he asked in an unsteady voice.
“I feel sure it would… I know it would… if you wouldn't mind doing it!”
“Shall we try it tonight?”
“Yes, yes!” I whispered.
“Now?”
“Yes!”
So realistically had I enacted my self-imposed role of ingenuous impudicity that, unconsciously, it had quite taken hold of my own imagination, and for the moment I was actually living the part I had assumed.
As I slipped from his lap I distinctly felt a tremor in my own knees, and the warm glow of sexual excitation was permeating my body. I had “acted” myself into a real heat.
With trembling fingers I undid my panties and without troubling to remove my dress lay down on my back upon the bed. Shielding my eyes with a forearm and in a fever of anticipation I awaited his approach.
He rose from his chair and sat down on the edge of the bed by my side. He hesitated uncertainly for a moment and then slowly inserted his hand up under my dress. Seeing that he had not the assurance or temerity to throw the dress back and expose my body, and having succeeded in working myself up to a degree in which my own organism was now imperatively demanding satisfaction, I reached down and pulled up the dress myself, revealing
