The Belvedere.

This Cannot End Well.

He startled her into full consciousness when she felt him in front of her and touching her. She tried to close her legs together and to bring the blanket closer around herself again, but she couldn’t. He was kneeling between them, very close to her, looking up into her face.

What did he intend now?

There was no way she could bring her legs together to hide herself from him with him where he was, though instinct had forced her to try. He had taken her by surprise and he must feel her legs pressing against him.

Her mother was strangely quiet for once, but her own thoughts were noisy enough:

Stop this stupidity, Harriet. You wanted to die, you wanted this to happen to you by inviting the devil in, you know you did. This is your punishment. It is what fate intended for you. Stop resisting, give in to him, it will be over sooner, and with less harm to you.

He began taking off her shoes after unfastening the laces, and then said something about needing to take off her wet hose, but needed her to relax so that he could. He would need to untie them before he could remove them. He needed her legs much further apart to do that, to get at the ribbons up near the top of her legs, but she was resisting. No lady would ever willingly put her legs so far apart, and never for a man.

He must know how difficult it would be for her to give in.

He looked up into her face and waited for her to try and relax. His eyes betrayed nothing that would cause her to fear his intentions. Never had she been in such an embarrassing situation with any man, but there was nothing she could do about it.

There was a voice in her head, chastising her for this resistance when he was trying to help her. It was her own voice again.

Stop being such a ninny. He is trying to help you, even if it is embarrassing for you both.

She relaxed, against her better judgment, and moved her legs for him without any further prompting on his part, seeing his suddenly fixed attention between her legs yet again.

Her mother’s warning voice, with a misbelieving, nervous chuckle, characteristic of her mother, intruded once more.

’You were not supposed to give in this easily, my love. You are making it too easy for him and tormenting him by letting him see you in such a tormenting way like this. It will not end well for you.’

Oh, shut up, Mother!

He needed her to move her legs so that he could get at the ribbons, and he applied some pressure to move her legs as far as he needed them to be. Nothing of her was hidden now as he leaned closer into her. He loosened the ribbon, which had been wrapped about her hose on each leg, holding them up on her. To do that, he was touching her where he should not have been touching, unable to avoid touching some hair there with the back of his fingers, as he fumbled with the ribbons. She flinched when that happened, as it often did.

His ears were burning, she could see that about him, but so were hers.

He looked up at her again as though apologizing for touching her in that private place, albeit by accident. He then moved in closer to see why the knot was resisting. The ribbon was wet, and the water had caused it to shrink and to tighten. He hesitated, closing his eyes for a few moments as though overcome by weakness of some kind. She felt his hands trembling as his head fell to rest upon her leg. It was easy to see the difficulty he was experiencing, and it was not only to do with that ribbon. He was interested in her there with her legs so far apart. Too interested in what he could see of her.

He recovered to concentrate on what he was doing, but the knot in the wet ribbon was too tight to untie easily, so he had to move closer, and focus better as he continued to fumble with it.

Once the ribbon was untied and unwrapped from around her thigh, he brought her hose on that leg, down to the knee. Then, he moved his attention to the other leg. The ribbon on that one had drifted to the back of her leg. This one would be more difficult. She could not do it for herself, so she lifted that leg to make it easier for him to see under it, trying to ignore what he was doing, and feeling him touching, with her now opened up more to him.

She looked far off to distract herself from what he was doing and seeing. He would be able to see even more of her now, with nothing left to guess at about her body there, the way she was sitting for him, exposed like some common strumpet revealing herself for his admiration and personal attention. She no longer cared.

She sat back, lifting her leg even more so that he could get at the knot, letting the blanket slip behind her, and concentrated upon making that knot easier for him to get at. She did not even make the attempt to cover herself down there, or anywhere, as she knew she should do. Her own feelings were becoming foreign to her. She had never felt this way before. Her embarrassment had gone. Everything seemed to be as it should be, even with him as attentive to her as he was. What a peculiar thought.

She was feeling warm, and even breathless, having this man where he was, and doing what he was doing as his breath, a dragon’s fiery breath, bathed her in warmth. She felt like laughing, but instead she could hear only her mother groaning inside of her head.

Her mother knew, as well as anyone, that every woman born, had to travel this awkward and difficult path once a man came into her life and began to pay her that special kind of intimate attention.

Harriet looked at his face and tried to place herself into his mind and what he must be thinking about her, but she couldn’t. He seemed uncertain about what he was doing for her, even nervous.

She smiled at some strange notion of what was really happening to her; to them both. What she was feeling was rebellion against all she had known. Everything she had been taught to fear about men was being re-thought and questioned. She caught herself from chuckling in a way he might hear and paid more attention to what he was doing.

He was looking at her so intently between her legs and startling her as he touched her upon her labia again as he fumbled with the ribbon, pausing, then touching her where no man should ever touch, and this time not by accident. With him being a man, of course he would stare and touch. She knew she should try to bring her legs together, as a respectable woman should, rather than behave as a common harlot, but didn’t. What he could see of her was not to be tolerated, and here she was, not doing anything about it, but letting him see everything, and even assisting him as she watched changes in what she could see of his expression.

It was strange to recognize that she was not embarrassed. It was almost as though she was not here, but was a disembodied spirit, out-of-body, looking on this embarrassing and revealing scene from far off. This was what she deserved, and what fate had intended for her when she had left in a rebellious mood this morning, and firmly putting herself into the hands of the devil. That again. This was what she had asked to have happen to her by her own behavior, thinking to bring an end to her life as she had. There could be no turning back now. But she didn’t want to turn back, and this was not the devil, nor did it feel like the end of life.

The knot eventually gave.

She was almost disappointed. He brought her hose down her legs, and off her, turning them inside, out. He was taking his time about it, and she knew why. He was mesmerized by her, and by what he could see of her body, staring at her where he was. He was taking them off her slowly. He was not watching what he was doing but was staring intently between her legs again as though hypnotized by what he could see of her there.

His face rose from looking at her there, to her breasts, seeing their fullness, those erect n*****s, truly erect now for some reason, and the even more rosy, wide areola, all of which spoke volumes to him about her excited condition. He closed his eyes for a moment. She could see a flush, high on each of his cheeks. He seemed overcome by some powerful emotion, just as she was. She knew what it was. She had heard about it enough times when other young women had been caught in such a predicament and were able to speak of it after (if they dared, or were able to), yet she was no longer afraid.