Posted 20030426 to alt.sex.stories.moderated. A Small Surrender (MF,rom) by Philip Harris "No Ted, I couldn't." Laura liked the ring very much. It was silver, with little dolphins swimming around it in a circle. It fit this day so perfectly: the early-summer sunshine, the ocean-and-old-wood fragrance of the pier. "Kevin would be suspicious," she offered at last, turning away from the jewelry store window. "You can tell Kevin that you bought it yourself," Ted suggested. "It would look so pretty on your finger Laura. I like the idea of you wearing it. If we don't work things out--if you decide to stay with Kevin--then it will be something secret that you can keep to always remind you of me. I'd like that." Laura was drawn to the ring, and it really would have looked pretty on her hand. "Listen Laura," Ted persisted, "Which is the finger that you use the most on yourself?" "Ted!" Laura cried in genuine anger, punching his arm. "No seriously! Is it this one, or this one?" He took her hand and held each of her fingers, kissing each fingertip. Laura pushed him away. "I want to know Laura, because that's the finger I want you to wear my ring on. Then I can phone you in the evenings when you're alone and ask you if you've 'used your ring' for me that night." "Ted," Laura answered him in a angry voice, "you always talk so dirty to me when we're alone. You make me uncomfortable." Ted did make Laura feel uncomfortable with his persistent sexual pursuit, but she secretly liked very much the way he always made her feel desired. "Besides, I don't do that," she lied. "Oh, but Laura, I want you to!" Ted grabbed her by her elbows now, pulling her very close, and speaking quietly in her ear. "When you get up in the mornings, when you take your shower, I want you to finger Kevin out of you, and then climax yourself wildly for me." "Stop it Ted, you really go too far!" Laura spoke louder, more angrily, and pulled away from his grasp. And then after a pause she said, "And you don't really know anything about such things . . . It takes three fingers." "I mean which finger do you use most on your clit? I want you to wear my ring on your clit finger." "Stop that talk Ted!" Laura didn't want anyone else on the street to hear what Ted had been saying to her. The ring in the window was very pretty though, and she secretly did want it. She paused to look at it for a moment longer, thinking of herself wearing it in the shower and doing Ted's wicked suggestion. Ugh! Oh why couldn't he just want to be friends with her, Laura asked herself before turning and walking away. Their conversation turned to more mundane matters. Provincetown was quaint and pretty, with the promise of coming summer. High-priced tourist shops lined the waterfront streets, and happy couples walked hand in hand everywhere. Ted took Laura's hand, and she didn't refuse him. He had stolen a day from work, suggesting this trip to her last night when they talked on the telephone. They talked on the phone almost every evening. Laura had stolen the day too, lying and calling in sick. Kevin would never take a day off like this, she thought sadly. He loved his work too much, travelling and working long hours every day, and many weekends too. Laura picked out a café, and she and Ted sat at a tipsy, wrought-iron table beneath a big green umbrella. Whenever the wind gusted, the table rocked on the flagstones. Ted was good company, when he wasn't talking of doing filthy things to her. Laura genuinely enjoyed being with him. She looked about at couples talking together, and she sighed inside that Kevin never spent time with her like this. Ted would give all his time to Laura, if she wanted it. Of course he wanted sex in return. He told her that constantly. He wanted her body. "Why are you always trying to have sex with me?" she asked Ted suddenly. "Because I like big breasts," he answered simply. "Plenty of other girls have big boobs," Laura said. "Yours are the boobs I want Laura." "You've never even seen mine," she said. "I know what they feel like," he answered meaningfully. It's true that Ted's hands knew their way around inside of Laura's clothes. On the boat ride down from Boston, Laura's legs had been cold in her short pants, and Ted had brought her a blanket from the ship's on-deck supply. He'd sat beside her and covered both their laps with the blanket. He'd held her hand underneath the blanket, speaking pleasantly to her about the beauty of the sea around them. It wasn't long before Laura felt his hand stray, as she had known it would. He caressed inside her thigh. Ted was very good at caressing! She felt his fingers unbutton her shorts, and then felt his hand slide down into them, and then start to slide into her underwear too. "No," Laura had said quietly, and Ted's fingers retreated from her underwear, but stayed within her pants. Slowly, patiently he worked his fingers downward again, outside of her underwear, but invading her more; pausing but not retreating at Laura's further "no's." Eventually he touched her. Laura spread her legs apart a little bit in slight concession, immediately feeling very guilty. She'd let him get this far before though, touching her through her underwear. She promised herself that she'd never let him go farther. She never intended to let him touch her at all, yet for some reason she found that she just couldn't refuse him. She often argued with him, but Ted was good at getting his hands into her clothes anyway. Laura had to admit to herself that she was partly to blame, for encouraging him. She only wanted to be friends with Ted, but how could they just be friends when she let him do this to her? "No Ted," she'd told him on the boat when his fingertips started trying to slip aside her underwear thong. The he tried coaxing her through her underwear. "No, I'll make too much noise," she said People were everywhere on the boat; walking past them, leaning over the railing in front of them, even sitting on the same long bench with them. "We'll be kissing, Laura," he said, not stopping his fingertip persuasion, "so you won't make any noise." "No, please Ted," she told him quietly, not wanting anyone to overhear. "Please don't Ted--please!" Laura didn't try moving herself or pushing Ted away from her. She felt certain he would obey her voice. Ted persisted for another minute, knowing Laura well enough to persist, but in the end he stopped, as she'd asked him to. Laura stopped him in time, but not before reacting wetly, and she was left desperately wanting to be finished. She had to get up and stroll around the deck to walk off the sensation. Then she'd had to act as if she were very angry with Ted, knowing that otherwise he could make another assault while she was still aroused and vulnerable. Her pretended anger kept him at bay until the ferryboat boat docked in Provincetown. Ted was always assaulting her, but Laura keep seeing him in secret whenever Kevin was away. "You're not married to Kevin, you just live with him," Ted said, startling Laura from her reverie at the café. His words seemed as if he were reading her mind. "I just want to be friends with you Ted," she said, not wanting to repeat old arguments. Laura felt ashamed at enduring Ted's constant sex assults. She felt even more ashamed that Ted knew how effective his assaults were on her. Whenever Laura was out with Ted she always wore a heavy sweatshirt to conceal her betraying nipples from the public, and to conceal his frequently-groping hands. After lunch at the café, they visited a few art galleries. Ted told Laura clever little wisecracks that he made up about each of the artists. He kept her laughing until her sides ached. More than one gallery owner frowned at them. "Are you shopping today, or just looking?" a snippety gallery owner asked them. "I want a nude painted of my wife," Ted invented quickly, indicating Laura with a sweep of one hand. "Her, nude, riding akimbo on a leaping dolphin. Can you do it right here while we wait?" Ted said it with perfect seriousness. "I . . . um. You might be able to arrange a sitting with a local artist," the gallery owner said, sure that he was being joked with, but still trying to be polite. "Oh we can't wait," Ted snipped. Taking Laura's hand he hurried her out the door, saying, "Come dear, let's go get Polaroids done." Laura laughed for ten minutes, as they walked down the street, trading suggestions of wise-cracks they could have added. Laura loved Ted's free spirit. He really was a wonderful companion when he kept his hands to himself. If it weren't that she was living with Kevin . . . . Another hour of window-shopping took them gradually away from the tourist crowds, and eventually they found a private spot together near a seawall, where they leaned against the railing and looked outward at the ocean surf. Ted stood behind Laura, hugging her about the waist, holding her body comfortably close against his. Laura confessed to herself that when Ted held her like this it felt as if she should be with him instead of with Kevin. Ted's hands started near her hips, but after a few minutes they drifted up, beneath her sweatshirt, taking her breasts from underneath. Laura was expecting this. She pushed his arms down firmly. Almost immediately his fingers started exploring her waistband, until an "ah" of warning from Laura made his hands again retreat. A few moments later he reached up beneath her sweatshirt again, crisscrossing his arms around her ribcage and cupping her breasts, this time sliding her bra cups upward and clasping her bare breasts in his hands, a move he had perfected through practice on her. He held her body tightly against his. Laura left his hands where they were. This was a familiar game for them. She knew that she had to give into Ted sometimes, and this was the most that she ever permitted him. Now, and with the morning's finger-teasing, Ted had explored the absolute boundaries of his intimacy with her. The bare flesh of her breasts and a little of her wetness through her underware was all that she ever gave in to him. Laura folded her hands about her waist, drawing her elbows to her sides to help conceal Ted's actions from chance eyes. Ted's face rested against Laura's as they both gazed seaward. He kissed her cheek; she'd never let him kiss her lips. Beneath her sweatshirt his hands squeezed her breasts in slow pulses. She could feel his erection growing as he pressed it to her through their clothes. Laura had known for the whole day that this would come. A date with Ted always involved breast groping eventually. She knew that it was part of his incessant effort to arouse her beyond her control. This was their familiar contest for her body. For a moment Ted's persuasion seemed irresistible. He was now pressing his erection against her in rhythm with his breast squeezing, a publicly subtle but intimately very arousing imitation of fucking. Momentarily he was winning; Laura wanted desperately to surrender, right there on the cold, wet sand at the foot of the seawall. What would be the harm in giving into him just this once, she wondered? "Stop it Ted," she said, after a minute, bringing her arms down and away from her sides, a signal that his privilege was over for now. Ted had lost the contest again. Laura was afraid that his overtures were becoming too obvious. Beneath her sweatshirt, Ted replaced her breasts within her bra cups neatly, again something well practiced. Laura wondered if Ted guessed that she wore a bra conveniently easy for this, ever since his clumsy first assault. They walked on, past the end of the shops, to a shore lane of small cottages with fresh blooming gardens, and trees proudly wearing new green leaves. Ted stopped before a pretty inn, with a broad white swing on the porch, and a vacancy sign. "That will be our room," Ted said, pointing to a small second-floor window with lacy white curtains and red shutters, "if we stay tonight." Laura's face was hard, but inside she felt that she'd never heard a more romantic proposition. Ted had known that Kevin would be away in Cincinnati all week. In her small bag Laura had the toothbrush and other things that Ted had asked her to bring, even though she'd said that she wouldn't. Let's just go down to Provincetown for the day, Ted had urged her, but bring your overnight things. Don't bring any birth control, he'd said. Ted knew that Laura wanted a baby, and that Kevin would never agree to one. That's why she and Kevin hadn't married yet. Ted had promised Laura as many children as she wanted, under any conditions she cared to name. "I have to be back at work tomorrow Ted," Laura answered after a pause, and then she turned and started walking back toward the ferry dock. They had wandered far from the waterfront, and had to walk quickly now to reach the pier in time to take the last boat back to Boston. They sat on the same ferryboat bench that they'd chosen for the morning voyage. Once out in the harbor, the late-day wind became chilly. Laura felt sad for Ted. He wanted her so much and was so nice to her. She knew that he was in love with her. He wanted her body, but he also really loved her. Laura felt sorry that she'd refused the dolphin ring, that she hadn't agreed to stay for the night--and that she was probably never going to. The evening was becoming dark. Was that the inn that they had paused before, there, going out of view on the shore? The small, second-floor window was still dark; the room was still unoccupied. Laura noticed that there weren't as many people on the boat for this homeward trip, and few of them were outside on the decks. After a while other passengers left the deck, retreating into the light and warmth of the lounge, until only one other couple remained outside near Ted and Laura. As soon as that last couple left the deck, Laura felt Ted's arm lower, his hand leaving her shoulder and taking a cupping grab around her right breast, through her sweatshirt. She leaned back against his arm, and his other hand cupped her left breast. Laura made no objections, although she knew that he would soon reach beneath her bra again. Would it really be so bad to let his fingers inside her underwear? "Ted," Laura said, not turning her head to look at him, "go get us a blanket to cover our laps." -end- More stories by Philip Harris can be found on /~pharris/.