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"
I don't know anything about
lie detectors other than they scare the
hell out of people.
" - Richard
Nixon
You
might be asking yourself ‘what would make
a forty-ish year old housewife from the
suburbs volunteer to take part in any
university experiment?’ The answer is as
simple as it is complex: to do something
different.
Unlike
many of the women in my neighborhood, most
of whom had memberships to exclusive
Country Clubs and idled away the days
playing tennis and bragging to each other
how rich their husbands were, I only lived
where I did because the house I was in had
been bequeathed to me, for reasons
unknown, by a distant aunt. My husband had
been thrilled by our windfall but he
didn’t seem to realize that while we might
have lived in a grand house, we had no
where near the income to be considered in
the same social class as all those living
around us. This offended me more because I
had actually been raised in an affluent
family that had “old money”, although my
grandfather’s gambling habit saw to it
that not much was left of it by the time I
was an adult. I attended all the best
schools, and basically felt a cut above my
neighbors, most of whom were the second or
even third “trophy wives” for their
wealthy husbands – secretaries and
receptionists of doctors and lawyers
married by their employers. Simply put,
there might only have been fences between
us, albeit it towering ten foot solid
concrete ones with security lighting, but
I may as well have lived a world away such
was the differences between their lives
and mine. Simply put, I was starting to
feel old, isolated and alone, particularly
during the day when my husband was off at
work.
For me,
the biggest highlight during the day had
become my trek out the front to my
mailbox. It wasn’t that I got a lot of
mail from anybody – I got nothing but
bills if I got anything at all. But
recently I had been getting a free
newspaper dropped in the box once a week
and it had become something of an habitual
exercise every Tuesday to collect it and
then while away the afternoon, sipping a
gin and tonic by the pool and reading all
about the goings on by students at the
nearby university. It was there I saw a
small notice, buried away in the pictures
of radical students at peace rallies and
long, angry rants against everything from
capitalism to plastic inflatable pool
toys, seeking volunteers for some kind of
research project. The wording of it was
quite vague except to say there would be
some kind of questionnaire involved and
that details gathered from all respondents
would be kept confidential. It also
stipulated that only women were being
sought at this stage and only those in my
age range. There was a telephone contact
number and I rang it. Somebody named
Cassandra had been my initial point of
contact. An interview had been arranged,
I’d been told, to determine whether or not
I would make a suitable candidate for
their project. The details at this stage
remained a secret, but I didn’t care. It
sounded like fun and that was one thing I
felt my life was sorely missing.
The
image of the naked woman I’d seen in the
reception area was still vividly etched in
my mind when Cassandra invited me to step
into her office. I remember it clearly
because it was Cassandra who first
mentioned it, making some kind of
light-hearted joke about it and the shabby
conditions of the décor generally
before introducing herself formally. I
don’t know what it was about her, but she
was instantly likable. There was a
directness about her – a down-to-earth,
lack of pretense about her – which I
hadn’t really encountered in anybody since
my own days at university twenty years
ago. Back when I was young and carefree
myself.
Cassandra herself wasn’t
that young and I guessed her to be in her
late twenties or early thirties. But she
radiated enthusiasm and youthfulness I
felt to be magnetic in the way it affected
me. Her eyes, a sparkling emerald green,
seemed to dance all over me as she spoke.
Such was the vitality she exuded. Straight
away, for the first time in many years, I
didn’t feel old! A person couldn’t help
but feel young around her, and this was
highly appealing for me given the
otherwise dullness of my life back at
home.
I sat
silently listening, enthralled by her to
the point of not even listening properly
to what she was now explaining to me. She
briefly outlined her academic background –
an electrical engineering graduate herself
with a Masters Degree as well as an
impressive list of private and
governmental contract work to her credit.
I didn’t absorb the details too well, but
I was impressed. I looked at her
admiringly and thought ‘so young, so
smart, and so successful.’ She was also,
it occurred to me, attractive although not
in that vacuous, empty-headed fashion I
saw daily in my neighbors. She clearly
worked every step of the way to get to the
position she was and I sensed, behind her
jovial, effervescent personality to be a
woman of uncompromising determination. I
had to hold back the slight ping of regret
that opportunities for women had not been
so available back when I’d graduated from
university.
After
this background briefing Cassandra went on
to start explaining the project that, she
said, was something special she first
started designing more than ten years ago.
It had taken her that long to get it off
the drawing board, not with any
governmental grants or even university
funding but through a source of private
patrons who supported the work she was
doing. She paused at this stage, already
acknowledging that I looked like I might
be a suitable candidate for the project
even though I’d not said a word beyond
introducing myself when I first walked
into her office Cassandra pushed a sizable
document across the desk to me.
It all
looked so intimidating. The front cover of
the document folder was emblazoned with
the word “Confidential” and the first page
preface explained I was about to sign a
legally binding agreement in which certain
trade secrets and other information might
be disclosed to me. Cassandra talked me
through a lot of the legalese which, she
said, merely said I was about to sign a
Confidentially Agreement. “It’s sort of
like a marriage prenuptial,” I think were
her exact words. They never existed as far
as I know when I was married, but I knew
the intent and so I flipped through the
twenty or so pages of the agreement,
stopping to sign the various places on
pages which had been tagged with small,
yellow post-it stickers.
I felt a
sense of relief when I finally signed the
last page. When I turned to hand it back
to Cassandra, who had by this stage moved
around to watch closely over my shoulder,
she also appeared pleased I completed the
document. She did ask if I had any
questions about what I’d signed after I’d
finished but I didn’t. I knew what a
confidentiality contract was – it meant I
had to keep the details of her project a
secret. Even a person like me who’d been
locked away for years in the suburbs knew
what that was all about. And besides, I
couldn’t wait to hear what those details
were. I even remember feeling at that time
that I would guard Cassandra’s project as
closely as she obviously guarded it
herself. I barely knew her and yet already
felt compelled to do whatever she asked.
To even do more than she asked if it meant
she could rescue me from the mind-numbing
tedium which was my life in the suburbs.
Cassandra didn’t resume her
seat behind her desk but instead rolled
her chair around so she could sit right
beside me. She placed another document on
the desk in front of me along with a gold
pen, elegantly engraved with a Celtic type
of floral design, and asked me to complete
my personal details in the spaces provided
on the cover sheet of the document. The
pen felt heavy and comfortable in my hand,
the ink flowing thickly and smoothly as I
wrote my name along with things such as my
address, phone number and other contact
details. I included an email address. Not
my usual one which formed part of my ISP
account and which my husband used more
often than I did for his own work-related
business but my own private one which I
had with Yahoo. I’m not sure what prompted
me to do that, but I did, almost
instinctively. It was the account I used
to keep in touch with a few of my closest,
most intimate friends. Not a big list of
people, but special people with whom I
would share certain secrets about myself
that I couldn’t share with anybody else.
Not even my husband. It just seemed right
that Cassandra should be on this list as
well.
Turning
the first page, I saw a multiple choice
quiz with maybe forty or fifty questions I
was required to answer by placing a small
cross (x) in the “yes/no” boxes. The
instruction from Cassandra was brief and
simple. I was to answer each question as
quickly as possible – with the first
thought that popped into my head. The quiz
was to be timed and she informed me I
would have thirty minutes to complete it.
It was at that moment that I realized
there’d have to be some commitment on my
part to actually work at being a guinea
pig for Cassandra’s project. It reminded
me a little of my old university days and
the exams I took. I was always the good
student and I did well on tests, but I
usually liked to have some warning of them
first to give me time to mentally prepare.
I wasn’t prepared for this quiz but I was
yet to discover just how unprepared I was.
I was told there were no right or wrong
answers and that by having been asked to
sit the test I’d already been accepted as
a participant in the project, but it still
didn’t make me feel entirely comfortable.
I’ve never been a competitive person at
the best of times, but I like to do well
on tests and at other mental
challenges.
All the
while Cassandra was explaining things to
me I sat there staring blankly down at the
list of questions. It seemed to be asking
things like “do you like chocolate?” or
“do you like asparagus?” – simple yes/no
questions relating to various foods and
drinks. I didn’t even feel Cassandra’s
hand on my shoulder, but she was gently
squeezing and telling me to relax and not
to get too worried about making any
mistakes. It was reassuring and I relaxed
enough to take a deep breath and give her
a warm smile in return. Her hand seemed to
linger a moment after that and felt kind
of strange in a way I still can’t explain.
It was a friendly, affectionate gesture,
but there was something else to it.
Something inexplicable. Cassandra glanced
at her watch and then gave me the signal
to start: a jovial “off you go!”
I could
feel Cassandra’s eyes on me as I answered
the first few questions. She still had one
arm draped casually around the back of my
chair and the other lying relaxed in her
lap. She watched me for a minute or so and
then stood up, moving somewhere behind me.
After a few minutes of studiously
answering a multitude of questions about
everything from my favorite foods to
fashions I like or dislike I came to the
end of what was the first section. There
were many more pages following but the
instruction on the bottom of the page said
I was to stop and ask for direction
regarding the next section.
Cassandra was already
standing right behind my chair. When she
saw that I’d completed the section she
leaned forward behind me, grasping the
back top of chair so she could lean right
over and speak with her face tight beside
mine. My reflex response was to suddenly
move out of her personal body space like a
magnet might suddenly recoil away from
another of similar attraction. It was an
immediate response conditioned by an
upbringing that frowned on close intimacy
of any kind that might lead to physical
contact with another person.
That
would have been my action if I hadn’t
detected an immediate and unseen reaction
by Cassandra. It was instantaneous and all
happened in the blink of an eye, but from
that moment she put her face close to
mine, almost cheek to cheek with both of
us studying the quiz in front of me, it
was as if a thread had suddenly joined us
and by moving I was breaking that contact.
Cassandra turned her head just slightly so
she could see me out of the corner of her
eye and asked if everything was okay with
me.
I recall
thinking it was but it wasn’t. I could
feel my neck and ears burning and knew I
was blushing but I had no idea why? The
office was air conditioned and even felt
cold when I first entered, but now I was
burning up like I was on fire. I laughed
and made some feeble excuse about being
nervous about the test being responsible
for the small beads of perspiration I knew
had dampened my upper lip, but it was a
lie. Cassandra asked if I would like to
take a short break – to go to the bathroom
and freshen up before continuing. I said I
was okay and didn’t need to, but she
persisted.
Again
Cassandra touched me, this time using both
hands to squeeze the muscles in my
shoulders now so knotted and tense they
ached. There was no denying I was tense
when she squeezed. Cassandra could feel
the knots and her hands gently started
massaging, making me initially hold my
breath and tense up even more before I
remembered to breathe and exhaled slowly
allowing the relaxing rubbing of her hands
to sooth my sore shoulders.
Cassandra asked a number of
times whether or not I was enjoying her
massage. It was impossible to say no
although the best I could manage to say
otherwise was to moan softly. An
appreciative moan accompanied by a
breathless “yes”. I could literally feel
the tension disappearing as if it was
being sucked out of me through her
fingers. It was so generous of her, I
thought. So caring for somebody who didn’t
even know me to be so considerate. I felt
like I was melting beneath her hands and
it felt good.
I wanted
to thank Cassandra in some way, to show I
how much I was appreciating what she was
doing. I wanted to show her in some
demonstrative way rather than simply
telling her. I don’t know why I did it,
but I reached up with my hands, gently
placed them on hers, and gave the backs of
them a little light rub of my own. “Thank
you,” I said. “I’m really enjoying that.”
I was about to take my hands away again
when she gently grabbed my wrists and
stopped me.
Cassandra said it was an
exercise she knew which would help relax
my muscles even more. I listened as she
explained, relaxing my entire arms as
directed and allowing her to lift them
high up above my head. “Just relax,” she
kept saying as she held them there for a
long moment before readjusting her grip on
my wrists. I felt her changing hands and
then slowly, very gently, making a large
arc in the air with my arms as she lowered
my hands again, forcing me to cross my
arms behind my head and eventually bend my
elbows as well. It was a contorted
position and not one I could have gotten
into on my own, but one that was strangely
pleasurable as well. I thought it was
especially pleasurable because I could
still feel the tightening grip of her
hands around my wrists.
I was
forced to put my chin on my chest once
Cassandra had pulled my arms down to the
limits of their flexing capabilities. I
could only moan softly when she asked if
what she was feeling felt good. It did.
Sublimely so. I moaned again, this time as
she slowly slipped her warm hands up the
undersides of my upper arms and gently
pulled back on my elbows. I arched my back
slightly and relaxed with her
manipulations of me.
All the
while she did this, Cassandra continued
quietly asking me whether or not I was
enjoying what she was doing. All of the
muscles around my shoulders as well as
those under my arms and along the sides of
my rib cage felt stretched to the limit,
but it was a pleasurable feeling made more
so when she released the pressure on my
elbows and told me to relax again.
It felt
like my arms were floating in the air even
though their dead weight and gravity kept
them dangling, my wrists crossed and
together behind my head. I was lost in a
dreamy delirium from which I didn’t want
to wake. My eyes remained closed even
after I became consciously aware Cassandra
had moved again, this time beside me,
leaning in close until I could feel her
hot breath on the side of my face when she
spoke. She complimented the sweetness of
my perfume. It was my favorite. White
Linen. Expensive and only worn for
occasions I’d like to be memorable. At
that moment, when Cassandra’s breath was
hottest against my face – when I felt a
tantalizing wave of pleasure raise the
skin of my entire body into a rash of
goose bumps – I knew this was going to
turn out to be one of those
occasions.
********
“You
have magic fingers, Cassandra,” I remember
saying. I could feel my face set frozen in
a smile; a smile that soon collapsed into
a state of total relaxation as the palms
of Cassandra’s soft, warm hands gently
enveloped the sides of my head. Her finger
tips spidered out over my closed eyes and
cheekbones, working in tandem to lightly
feather around the contours of my face and
eventually down to my chin. I could feel
her so close behind me; over me; seemingly
all around me.
I let
Cassandra pull my head back until it
rested comfortably against her stomach; my
head slightly tilted back with my forehead
snuggled just under the soft, fleshy
mounds of her breasts. He fingers traced
the line of my chin, starting at the
center and slowly drawing an invisible
line in the soft skin under my jaw bone
and out to the sensitive, almost ticklish
part just below my ears. I shivered and
then giggled. It was an explosive,
uncontrollable giggle. A familiar burst of
pleasure like the giggle which usually
followed a profoundly satisfying orgasm.
An instantaneous outburst of which caused
me such a fright that I immediately opened
my eyes.
Cassandra touched me again
in the same place. Again I giggled, this
time more openly. My whole body tingled
and I tensed up, screwing up my face and
hunching my shoulders like a turtle might
try to hide its head. I squealed the third
time Cassandra tickled my ears, shrieking
loudly as my arms and legs kicked out in
all directions. She was teasing me
mercilessly. She didn’t now even have to
touch me. It was enough to know her
fingers were poised right above the
position which would electrify me. I found
myself holding my breath; my nose and eyes
all wrinkled up and every muscle tensed to
steel myself against another ticklish
assault.
“You’re
not ticklish, are you Adrianna?”
It
wasn’t a question. Cassandra only made it
sound like one so she could continue
tormenting me. I’d deny it, she’d touch
me, I’d squeal and she’d ask it again.
Over and over, with me squirming and
twisting all over the place in my seat
until finally I had to spring from the
chair and beg her to stop. Tears were
streaming down my face and I had to gulp
large mouthfuls of air to try and regain
any sense of a normal breathing pattern
again. I felt exhausted; my heart thumping
so wildly in my chest I felt sure it would
burst out through my ribs.
Eventually I managed to
regain my composure. Even without looking
in a mirror I knew my hair was messed up.
I untangled a hair comb from a lock of
hair which had escaped from its neat
position pinned back on my head. Cassandra
stood there grinning at me. She didn’t
have to do anything except wiggle her
finger at me and I instantly broke into
fits of giggles again. I felt like a
little girl except for one significant
difference.
During
the excitement I’d lost a shoe somewhere
under Cassandra’s desk. I was still
adjusting my hair and patting down my
rumpled clothes when I noticed it. When we
noticed it. Not my shoe, but a neat dark
wedge of a stain on the black vinyl
upholstery of the chair I’d just been
sitting in. My eyes, suddenly wide with
horror, locked momentarily onto the stain
I’d made. By the time I found the power to
unfreeze my stare, Cassandra had also
noticed it. She seemed amused by it. This
only served to deepen my embarrassment. I
thought it might only be a perspiration
stain but the burning itch I felt between
my legs quickly confirmed my alarming
fears. It wasn’t wet enough to make me
think I’d peed myself, although that was
something I also feared. I could feel the
crotch of my panties becoming suddenly
cold and clammy as the moisture that
filled them started to slowly
evaporate.
Cassandra’s bright green
eyes locked onto mine, fixing me in a
stare that was like a laser in its
intensity. It was a look that screamed “I
know what just happened” but she didn’t
vocalize it. Instead, she smirked at me,
mocking me with a quizzical expression as
she stepped up close to stand toe to toe
with me.
I had no
idea what I was going to say by way of
explanation. Cassandra stood close, almost
physically pinning me between herself and
the desk behind me. I started to mutter
something – I forget exactly what. It was
incoherent gibberish. There might have
been a small space between our two bodies
but it felt entirely filled with
Cassandra’s aura. A heat like a magnetic
energy field, holding me still and unable
to escape.
Not
knowing where else to look, and desperate
not to look into Cassandra’s eyes, I
glanced back at the seat of my chair. The
mark had all but disappeared taking with
it all evidence of what had just happened.
But it was too late. Cassandra already
knew and so did I. We both knew and now
all that remained was for one of us to say
something. I was by now dumbstruck with
any words I might have been able to muster
stuck, lodged like a half swallowed ball
of nerves in my throat.
“You’re
very sweet, Adrianna.”
I smiled
faintly, realizing Cassandra wasn’t upset
with me. I still felt thoroughly
humiliated, but an uneasy calm was slowly
returning. She raised a hand and for some
inexplicable reason, I flinched and
cowered the way a child might when its
about to be slapped. Cassandra immediately
lowered her hand and the look on her face
– a look of total surprise – made me feel
suddenly foolish.
“Did you
think I was going to hit you?”
Cassandra sounded genuinely
surprised that I could even think a thing
about her. I was by now feeling ridiculous
for my silly reaction. I shook my head
apologetically and said “no.” Cassandra
clearly knew I was lying but she didn’t
push the issue. Instead, she lightened the
mood by joking about it and saying “if I
was going to hit you, I’d put you across
my knee and give you a proper
spanking!”
She
sounded like she was joking but at the
same time there was more to it. It was
suggestive; almost provocative. Sure,
Cassandra was now grinning broadly at me
but that didn’t disguise the fact I felt
she was deadly serious. I couldn’t think
of a single thing to say in reply and so
just smiled. Blushing deeply, slowly
looking up to meet her eyes with mine, and
politely smiling as if to try and hide the
sudden thrill which rushed from every
extremity of my body to sting me
sensuously between my legs. It was a
sensation that caused me to become acutely
aware of the hot wetness still seeping
into my panties. It was a burning, itchy
sensation which required immediate
attention if I was to continue with
anything. My nostrils also twitched to the
familiar, embarrassing smell of my arousal
wafting up from my crotch and encircling
Cassandra.
It’s
such a sharp smell I felt certain
Cassandra would be able to smell it. I
could smell it as strongly as I could
smell my own perfume and in fact, it was
itself a composite smell that always
reminded me of some of the most
pleasurable sexual experiences I’ve ever
had. It was mixture of scents; one sweet
and heavenly, the other pungent and
sordid. And if I could smell it, I felt
convinced Cassandra would also. I became
desperate to escape from the room and,
after a moment of silent immobility,
Cassandra burst out laughing and allowed
me to pass after I excused myself to go to
the bathroom.
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