So why, suddenly, did she feel so concerned about her sexual desirability?
That’s it, she thought.
She climbed quickly out of the tub, padded naked across the floor, and eyed herself in the full-mirror wall. She’d read that top-rate models were often convinced they were ugly. It was paranoia. Am I paranoid? she wondered, looking at herself. Am I attractive or am I a bow-wow?
The mirror replicated her image in bright, dripping crystal clarity. The bath water had layered her short black hair to wet points; her flesh shined in the glass. Hmmm, she contemplated. She stood 5’ 5”, and weighed 110 pounds the last time she stepped on a scale. Her trimness did not reduce her frame to boyishness; Vera’s contours clearly came together femininely. Long legs, well-defined hips, delicate shoulders. Her lean waist offered a slightly inverted navel, which tickled insanely when nibbled, and though she’d not had a suntan in years—her profession’s hours eluded the sun—her skin shined fresh, robust, and unblemished. Some of the more ribald girls at The Emerald, during girl-talk sessions, ranted endlessly over treatments of the pubic hair. They plucked, clipped, trimmed, waxed, electrolysized, etc., to no end. Vera saw little need for this—it seemed vainly silly. She’d discussed it once with Paul—the prevaricating prick—and he’d urged her to leave it be, with a sound observation. “It must be there for a reason,” he’d stated, “though I can’t imagine what reason. Mother Nature must know what she’s doing, you think?” It made sense, at any rate. Therefore, Vera left the dark, black plot alone, save for the occasional scissor-snip when things got too unruly.
Next, her eyes focused on the mirror’s cast of her breasts…gandering your rib-melons, she recalled again, and laughed, but then concluded, not much to gander. She supposed women were as concerned over the size of their breasts and men were over the size of their penises, and that this was an irrelevant concern. Vera wore a 34B, not exactly Chesty Morgan, but the breasts themselves were sufficiently erect and firm. “They feel like tomatoes!” one short-term lover from college had once informed her during a sexual frolic, which—she recalled now—included whipped cream, strawberries, and Hershey’s chocolate sauce. “I’m not a dessert cart, you know,” she’d pointed out. “We’ll see about that,” he’d replied, shaking vigorously the big blue can of Reddi Wip. I wonder what happened to him? she thought now. Probably weighs three hundred pounds. God, those were the days…
Indeed they were, and they were gone now, transcribed into a new reality. Vera could come to terms with that. What she couldn’t come to terms with was the great big question mark of the future. Suddenly she felt very irritated, and she didn’t know why.
She dried off with a huge black terry towel, then encloaked herself in it. She took her drink back out to the bedroom. The odd sexual anxieties continued to nip at her; she felt antsy. What is wrong with you? she thought. Eventually she finished her GM, turned out the light, and lay back in bed.
She crawled nude under the covers but kicked them off moments later, feeling smothered. She tried to blank her mind, to sleep. Each time her eyes closed, however, they snapped back open. An image seemed afloat beyond the room’s grainy darkness, and beyond her mind. Somewhere down the hall, a clock ticked almost inaudibly. She lay on her belly, hugging a pillow.
Go to sleep!
But the image continued to reform: two hands splayed, descending to touch her. The more fervently she tried to dissipate the vision, the sharper it grew in her mind. After many minutes of resisting it, she gave in to the truth. The fantasy hands belonged to Kyle. All right, she admitted. So I’m attracted to Kyle. It’s a primitive, purely physical, and silly attraction. So what?
Yeah, so what? Her skin felt flushed, sweat broke on her back like hot beads, and her sex moistened. The only way to get rid of the image was to acknowledge it. At least then she could get some sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut…
The hands formed arms. The arms extended to a body. It was a trim, young, muscular body. She concentrated on the image, let it focus in her mind, and suddenly she felt so anxious she was nearly whining. She put a face on the image: Kyle’s face.
She felt ashamed thinking of this, she felt immature and slutty. Nevertheless, her thoughts bid the hands…
Touch me.
She remained atop the sheets, on her belly. Her legs lay out behind her in a wide V.
Touch me right now…
She let herself feel the fantasy. The hands opened around her ankles, then began to slide up her legs in excruciating slowness. They felt soft, intent, firmly clasped. Vera’s feet flexed, her body went rigid. The hands proceeded in their slow journey up the smooth terrain of her legs, over the tightened calves, the insides of her knees, then widened, still slowly rising…
Vera was biting into her pillow. Her nipples hardened to pebbles against the mattress, and her moisture welled. The next impulse could not be resisted. Her own hand squeezed between her belly and the sheets, working its way down. She gently stroked the apex of her sex as the hands of the fantasy rose ever steadily, tenderly squeezing her thighs, then rising still to caress the tensed orbs of her buttocks.
Soon she was gushing. The rapt ministration of her finger, along with the fantasy’s sensation, had her panting on the verge of climax in minutes. But she didn’t want to come that way—the fantasy must be more complete, more sustaining.
And as if on the command of her desire, the hands, now slick with her sweat, slid down her hips, joined at her prickling sex, and then lifted her buttocks up until she was on her knees.
— | — | —
GRAND OPENING
— | — | —
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Jesus,” Vera muttered under her breath. She stood in wait at the hostess station, but there seemed little to wait for. Opening night was halfway over, and they’d served a grand total of nine dinners.
The Carriage House glimmered in candlelight. Beyond the east wing’s opulent bay windows, the winter sky winked with stars and a high, bright moon. From hidden speakers, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 threatened to put her to sleep in its lilting, quiet strains.
Damn good thing Feldspar turned down my request for a waitress, she thought, looking around. Packing them in like this, Donna waited all the stations, ran the service bar, and still had time to stand around. Vera’d nearly thrown a fit when Feldspar had buried her suggestion of running an advertisement in the local newspaper, The Waynesville Sentinel. “Oh, I don’t see any necessity in that,” he’d told her. “We’re booked solid.” No, The Inn’s booked solid, she’d wanted to counter. But my goddamn restaurant’s only got two reservations for the first weekend!
The previous weeks had been hard and fast. Setting up deals with decent suppliers had been like pulling teeth, but eventually Vera had managed to stock a quality inventory. The liquor order had come in yesterday, and half of their posted wine list remained to be seen. You don’t post Kruge, Perrier-Jouet, Dom Perignon and then reveal to customers on opening night “I’m sorry, sir, our champagne shipment didn’t come in, but we have a delightful, zesty little local wine called Squashed Grapes Red, and it’s only $5.95 per bottle.” No, seekers of fine dining did not want to hear that. Vera had had no choice but to pull all the wine lists.