Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Paul’s brows knit, as if he could sense my distress. His eyes narrowed a little, and I had the impression I could actually see him evaluating the percentage chance I would faint. He clearly thought it was low enough that he could continue, and I felt a perverse wave of something between gratitude and pride that I had passed a minor test.
“We’re in your bedroom,” he went on. “I’ve bought you this baby doll because I want to see you in it—because part of a suitor’s authority in a New Modesty context is choosing what his future wife wears when he comes to teach her to please him. I’ve chosen this. You’ve put it on for me because I told you to, and you’re standing here feeling shy and exposed, which”—a faint smile—“won’t require much acting on your part.”
A strangled sound escaped me that might have been a laugh if it had more air behind it.
“I’m going to look at you,” he continued. “I’m going to inspect you. I’m going to appreciate what I see, and then I’m going to decide something isn’t right. Something that needs to be corrected before you can wear the kind of lingerie I want you in.”
He paused. His eyes dropped—not to my breasts, not to my face, but lower, to the place where the chiffon of the baby doll’s skirt hung sheer as a veil over my hips, and through which I knew—I knew, with a sick, hot certainty—that the triangle of my pubic hair was visible. A pale blonde shadow behind pink chiffon, like a secret written in disappearing ink that hadn’t quite disappeared.
“Your hair,” he said simply. “Down there. I’m going to tell you that you can’t wear the lingerie I have in mind for you—the Surrender panties, the thong sets, the pieces that sit low on your hips and show everything—if you’ve got hair between your legs. I’m going to tell you that I want you bare. That I want you to feel bare. That a wife in a New Modesty household should feel submissive between her thighs every moment of the day, and that hair down there is a barrier to that feeling—a last little scrap of modesty that you’re hiding behind, whether you know it or not.”
My breath had gone even shallower. I wondered if Master Paul’s apparent calculation that I wouldn’t faint might be incorrect. Each inhale had become a thin, insufficient pant that didn’t seem to reach my lungs. The words feel submissive between her thighs had hit my body like a club, sending shockwaves upward through my stomach, my chest, the base of my throat.
“Then,” he said, “in the next scene—in the bathroom—I’m going to shave you. Myself. While you hold yourself open, and perfectly still, for me.”
I made a sound. A small, involuntary sound, half gasp and half whimper, that I couldn’t have suppressed any more than I could have suppressed a sneeze. My hands, which had been loosely crossed over my midsection, tightened, fingers gripping my own elbows as if I could physically hold myself together.
“There’ll be a lingerie set featured prominently in the establishing shot for the bathroom scene,” Melissa added from behind me, her voice businesslike and bright, as if we were discussing table settings for a dinner party. “A red lace thong and matching bra. The Surrender set in scarlet. It’ll be laid out on the counter beside the sink, or maybe hanging from a hook on the back of the door—Darlene and I will decide when we see the light. The point is that the audience sees what’s waiting for you. They understand the transaction: he’s taking something away—your hair, your last little hiding place—and replacing it with something he’s chosen. Something that will sit against your bare skin and make you feel what he wants you to feel.”
I closed my eyes. Behind my lids, the image assembled itself with a vividness that felt hallucinatory: the white tile of the bathroom set, the claw-foot tub, the mirror at its calculated angle. Master Paul’s hands between my legs, holding a razor. My hair falling away in soft, pale wisps. The red lace thong hanging from a hook, waiting for me, waiting to be pressed against skin that had never been bare, that had never been touched by anything but cotton and my own tentative, guilty fingers in the dark.
And me. Standing there. Letting it happen. Letting him see everything, touch everything, take away the last scrap of covering I had, because he’d told me to. Because he’d decided I needed to be bare.
The warmth between my legs surged so violently that I had tightened my thighs before I could stop myself; the motion made the chiffon skirt sway, and I knew—I knew—that everyone in the room could see the way I’d just squeezed my legs together, could read it for exactly what it was. Not discomfort, not modesty, but a girl trying desperately, futilely to manage an arousal that had grown beyond anything she could contain.