Chapter 3: Becoming Salome

Lucy Caldwell was 22 years of age, smart and beautiful, and she was Howard's girlfriend. To concentrate on her more important statistics for a moment: Lucy had a 34 inch bust, 34 inch hips and a 23 inch waist. She was 5 feet 10 inches in height, and she weighed 125 pounds in her lace panties. She had a tanned Mediterranean appearance, so much so that her friends asked her if she was Greek, Spanish or Italian, to which she answered, yes. Her mother was Italian.

Lucy's long black hair caressed her breasts at the front and it swept across her shoulders at the back. Below it, her torso was flat, long, and dark on the eye, sweeping from her breasts to her groin in a single sweet curve, and her legs were majestic, taut and sinewy. It appeared when you looked at them that they continued forever, and if you started at her feet and climbed to the top, you were sleep-walking on Everest, and in this cold rarefied air, there were frostings of triangular snow untrimmed by scissors and razor, and you yearned to run your teeth through this hair: and this was Lucy's beauty and charm, for there was something naturally unspoilt about her body, and when you gazed through the pubic fronds at her swollen slit, you couldn't help wondering whether you might be the first man to have seen it, although you weren't, not by a long chalk. Not at all.

What else could be said?

Perhaps this: Howard was Lucy's fianc' and yet he'd never properly set eyes on this feminine treasure or even touched it - her Mount Everest, her triangular snow, not in the privacy of a bedroom or even during a secret embrace. It was only on stage whilst she was performing Salome that he'd seen it. Here, he'd seen it as one of a thousand strangers, which was perverse given that Lucy was his girlfriend; but then, that was her nature. Lucy was perverse. She was the world's greatest perversion, an enigma, and this was her madness.

You see: she wouldn't swear, smoke, or drink alcohol. She refused to laugh at dirty jokes and she certainly wouldn't entertain matters that she considered 'unseemly'. She imitated her mother in her dress sense. Her skirts were generous in their length and sturdy in their construction, almost dour and Victorian. Her blouses were high around her neck and they hadn't any hint of a bust; and although she wore makeup, it was never to excess; and although she wore jewellery, it was never to distraction.

This then, was Lucy Caldwell, the supporting actress of our story. She was a relic of a bygone age, a prehistoric dinosaur. She'd told Howard on several occasions that she was opposed to sex before marriage, and when she said it, it came as a pronouncement: "I must tell you, Howie. I don't believe in sex before marriage, and I won't fuck you - I mean it - I won't do it, however ardently you ask me."

And yet, unaccountably, this self-confessed prude had oodles of sexual experience.

For instance - and we shall describe these events in more detail later in our story - at seventeen, she privately entertained twenty eight boys with an afternoon of exotic striptease at an ice cream parlour; and a year later she stripped and flashed outside an army camp, and there were police, soldiers and journalists all looking on. At college, she was known for singing operatic arias in a seedy downtown strip bar for tips; and more recently, she danced the Seven Veils in a local production of Salome, a performance which caused such general uproar and mayhem that Lucy became an object of gossip in the town.

Only in these staged, impersonal performances had anyone - including Howard - seen her naked. In these, she was another person: a sex crazed whore, wanton, lustful and abandoned; but at all other times, she was plain good old Lucy - the perfect embodiment of decency.

So when you put these sides of her together, Lucy Caldwell, for certain, was an enigma. Her quirks were variously romantic, irritating, sexy and unpredictable; and Howard was alternately frustrated, angered and endeared to them.

For instance, suppose he put a hypothetical proposition to her. For the sake of our argument, suppose he said: "Lucy, imagine that I've invited some friends for dinner, and that you're the hostess, and following a main course of Boeuf Bourguignon, served with mushrooms, shallots and new potatoes, accompanied by two bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1999, I suggested that you go to the kitchen and bring out a Pistachio-Walnut Baklava dessert in your skimpiest black underwear, and then you should sit down in your mock Georgian carver chair whilst I tie you up, loosen your underwear, and spoon you dessert, you'd have a fit and you'd scream and you'd say that my suggestion was offensive and a violation of your human rights and your conscience. Isn't that the truth?"

Lucy would smile and agree to this: "If you did that," she'd offer. "I'd never want to see you again. What of it?"

And it wasn't a joke. She meant it, which was the point! Lucy was weirder than an enigma and a paradox rolled into a bacon sandwich and Howard would shake his head and unbutton his collar and not know what to make of her. He would continue his imaginary conjecture: "Luc. That's what I don't grasp," he would add. "You tell me that you're shy and that you don't want to act sexy, and then, when I know your mind, you do something one hundred times worse than the thing that I dreamed up. For instance, how could you have danced as Salome in that stupid Opera? How could you, Luc? Sometimes, I think you do it to spite me. I don't understand your thinking at all."

And Lucy would skip across to Howard's side and snuggle against his shoulder, and then her fingers would snake into his shirt and she'd play with his nipples. "Wait till we're married, my dear," she'd whisper, winking at him and shaking her tits. "Because, then, when we're married, I'll serve dessert to your friends dressed anyhow you want me. It might embarrass them, of course, especially if the underwear were skimpy and you tied me and unfastened my bra before spooning me dessert. But I'll do it, Howie; I'll do it for you. After the wedding I'll consent to any of your nonsense, but I won't do it before."

And he'd groan and protest because she was cracking his head in. "There you go again, Luc! You're supposed to be conservative and Christian - that's what you tell me - but you don't act it. This Salome thing is a fucking contradiction!"

And Lucy would snuggle more deeply into his shoulder, and she'd feel his warmth and sniff his familiar manliness. "What's the matter, my love?" she'd tease. "What's this about? Do you object to my singing?"

"No. You know it's not the singing," Howard would belly- ache, weighing his words because she was unbuckling his belt and undoing his fly.

"Oh God!" he'd gasp, because she'd slipped off his belt and she'd tossed it casually onto the floor, and the noise was loud. "Then what is it, my dear? Don't you like my dancing? Is that it? I'd have thought that you'd have loved to get a good view of my tits shimmering and jimmying on stage, because I have pretty tits, Howie. Nice, sexy tits. Don't they turn you on, my dearest? I think they do; they must do. I hope that they do."

"You know that they do," he shuddered, for she was sliding her tiny fingers into his fly and she was exploring inside. There was a pair of black boxer shorts that she found there, and a generous bulge that was getting bigger and larger because her hand was groping and teasing it out. "What about my pussy and my ass, Howie?" came her innocent repost. "Did you look at them as I danced in Salome? When I was naked and everyone saw me? Did my pussy excite you and were you aching to possess me?"

"Of course I was!" he gasped, not breathing, for she was extracting his bulge from his pants, and it unfurled, a big purple knob and a swollen stem, with veins running its length and a big fat hole at the top. She settled down at his side, making room for herself. and then she spat saliva into her palm and rubbed it into the walls of his tool.

"Be patient with me," she cooed gently, applying her saliva generously to the sides of his cock, and her fingers worked it around his balls and into his groin, and she kept rubbing. "I know that my restrictions are frustrating and don't seem to make sense, but it isn't all bad, my dear. Having a Christian wife does have its benefits, because, you see, a Christian wife is bound to her husband for the length of his lifetime and she must obey whatever he asks of her. That's her duty, and even if the command is painful, uncomfortable or cruel, even if it makes her feel awkward and embarrassed, a wife's duty is to be obedient to her husband. Think of the power that bestows to a man, my dear, for there is no possibility of divorce, and no separation or way-out even if the husband becomes intolerant and unreasonable. A wife must stay at his side and do as he demands: no argument, and no discussion, and no alternative. Think about that carefully, my dear, and understand why I'm careful in choosing who I marry."

She purred to him softly and she kept rubbing his tool with the skill and wherewithal of a professional, and her face was buried in his shoulder, hidden from view, and she was smelling a man: her man, and her breathing was deep and erratic. "You can make me do whatever you like when we're married, Howie. You can beat me. You can make me serve dessert in black underwear or with a ball gag filling my mouth. You can strip me naked and parade me in front your mates and have them fuck me while everyone watches. You can play poker and wager me for a brace of one dollar bills. The Good Book says that a wife must be obedient to her husband. It says that if she won't do as he says, that he must punish her until she learns to obey, and that's the way it should be, my dear, and I support the right of a husband to apply such discipline to his wife."

Howard clung to his chair as the speed of her hand accelerated on his cock.

"When we're married you'll be my master," she whispered softly, her tiny fist working faster and furiously as she worked on his foreskin. It seemed that she was after conquering his dick and her hands were devious and evil! "You can torture me and humiliate me, and I'll be your sex slave, Howie. I'll obey you absolutely and irrevocably. Anything you ask of me, I'll do it - anything - but until then, you must prove that you deserve me and keep your hands to yourself."

Yet secretly, despite her words, she yearned that he kiss her, that he rip off her clothes and carry her upstairs and tie her to her bed. She yearned that he would touch every inch of her flesh and tease her, and when he was done, she wanted him to hump her pussy and screw her to the floor. She was so horny for Howard's cock that she could barely contain her hands and her mouth and her words; and yet the limits had been laid down, and she had no choice but to observe them.

For now, at least, the candy must stay in its box...

Howard was horny too, and yet for him the waiting wasn't so frustrating because Lucy's fingers were making him happy and they were artful and they were bringing him off. He moaned again because his climax was building, and he could sense from his spasms that he was threatening to blow. Oh God. Here it was. Her hand was in control, beckoning that he spurt. Here it was. He could feel it, and that he was coming! Here it was. His orgasm! It was coming! And yet, suddenly, her fist stopped in mid stroke and although she was holding his dick, it was too firm, too strong, too calculating, and she'd ceased her movement and very deliberately she was starving him of stimulus and encouragement, nailing the lid on his pleasure.

Then she kissed him, and it was a long, lingering passionate kiss; a kiss of hunger and emotion, of craving and pain. Her hand was holding tightly to his cock and he could feel Lucy's climax bubbling inside of her and building like molten lava rising in a magma chamber and searching for the surface, and he knew that there was nowhere to escape to, nowhere to go, and the force of his own cum was rising too.

And then, just as the frustration got to be intense and unbearable, she let go of him and the pressure exploded and it blew out the volcano and he didn't know what had happened or where it had come from, but he knew that he'd made a mess of his pants.

Jesus.

And again, she kissed him: deep and passionate, and Jesus. He was embarrassed and mumbling his apologies and looking for a tissue even as she wiped his cock with her skirt. She wiped her hands afterwards in the same way, again, cleaning them with her skirt, and then she French Kissed him using every square inch of her tongue, and at the end of it, she sighed and shuddered and groaned, before returning to her keyboard and that same terrible piece of music that she'd been playing before, the only visible sign of what had happened being the sticky mess of his cum staining her skirt.

God.

Howard was confused. What was going on here? What had she done? Lucy was driving him to distraction, repeating those same damned chord sequences, and there was the stain of his cum on her skirt and she was doing nothing to hide it.

Howard sat there on the sofa in bewildered silence, listening to her playing despite not liking the music because it seemed the right thing to do after what she'd just done. He sat there admiring the curve of her torso and the shapeliness of her ass through her clothes, and it was worth the confusion to experience that stain on her skirt. It was worth the wait - Lucy was worth the wait, and he could wait. He could wait if he had to. He could wait until after they were married. He could wait. He could wait because then he could fuck her and he could own her.

He could have her. He could possess her.

Oh God.

He'd tried so many times to make sense of their relationship, to know what they were and where they'd come from and where they were going, but he hadn't yet managed it and he couldn't, and that was the truth. "You play that part of Salome because it's art," he'd complain, slow and confused. "But what is art, Luc? Tell me. Tell me what you think."

"I'm not qualified to answer," she would answer, striking a dud note and staring disbelievingly at the keyboard. "I sing because I'm a singer and I'm in need of the work. I do it because I have to and not for any higher spiritual reason, and certainly not because it's called art."

"But it isn't art, it's licentious," Howard would complain. "That Strauss Opera is obnoxious! It's a piece of tat that should be given to a stripper to dance! It's not worthy of you, Luc!"

Lucy Caldwell would stop playing, and she would object, because she always objected to Howard's rants. "Salome calls for a strong, technically trained voice," she would flush indignantly, clearly enunciating her words. "No stripper would do as I did, and she couldn't. She might dance quite well, but she couldn't sing the way that I can sing, because she wouldn't know how to start!"

But Howard's argument wasn't drawn from the technicalities of singing. It was about Lucy's sexuality: about the fact that she was stripping, and yet she was always so dour. "Salome takes off her clothes," Howard reminded her slowly. "There is Grand Opera and there's Comic Opera, and that's popular too, but this isn't either of those. In fact, it's not Opera at all - I mean - not the way that you dance it, Luc - it's simply a strip show and worse. There are people who come to this show to be titillated and for no other reason, and I've heard people admit it. I've heard them say that they don't come because of the worthiness of the music or the cleverness of the plot, but because they've heard it rumoured from some mate down the pub that an otherwise devout lady who sermonizes in Church is undressing and making a bare-assed spectacle of herself down at the Majestic, and that's what draws them."

Lucy laughed as she listened to Howard's protest. She flung her arms into the air is some dramatic creation of her own and she laughed aloud. "Howard. That's humbug! It's crap! What I do is theatre - can't you see it? The fact that I dance the role doesn't mean that I think Salome is wonderful or that she'll be someone to emulate; neither will I copy her morals. It's a role, Howie. What's so hard to understand about that?"

Howard dropped his head and bit his tongue and said nothing because Lucy was passionate in the way that she defended herself and it was unsettling to hear her being so passionate about stripping when there were so many more important things to get passionate about: like Global Warming and the war in Iraq.

Here was the enigma again. Here she was the contradiction. what could Howard say? Lucy was wearing a roll neck pullover and calf length skirt. Her hair has tied back and her makeup was dour and conservative. Dressed like this, so modest and sedate, it was difficult to imagine her cavorting on stage and manipulating her sexual parts and inciting male watchers to fuck her, yet that's what she'd done and Howard had seen it.

He sighed, and he withdrew from the argument because it was perturbing and it was tensing him up. All the time they were talking he kept imagining Lucy on stage, naked, and how he'd seen her that first time.