This story, as is all stories, isn't written for everyone. If you enjoyed it, thank you very much and you're welcome, if not, thank you for visiting.
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I arrived, as requested, at 7:30 in the evening. There were three guys about my age in the room. Reading, working on books, stuff. A couple of words but no conversation of interest. We were all in our twenties. We looked like students. All slimish, about 5ft8, comfortably dressed, quiet, reserved, normal.
A door opened and a very nicely dressed lady, fifty-five, sixty, came in and said, "Gentlemen, if you please." With a hand she directed us through the door. Inside there was a group of about eight ladies of various dress and age, about forty-five and up, sitting in sofas and upholstered chairs looking comfortable. We sat in four empty chairs arranged in a semicircle, obviously for us.
Coffee and tea was served. Nobody introduced themselves. The ladies looked around a little and I guess it was silently decided who was going to start. The same lady that invited us in began.
"Gentlemen," she began. "We are all products of the society we're born into. Middle East, America, India, Scandinavia, all. America is more conservative than some and a lot of our young ladies are strongly sheltered until almost grown. As a result, they have great difficulty functioning in a normal adult fashion. We believe this will give them the tools needed to do so.
"We have looked into your backgrounds and this will give you valuable experience for your chosen educational tasks as you help us in ours. You are exceptionally suited for this. Are there any questions?"
The guy on my left said, "Who will be monitoring us?"
The lady said, "No one. Stop anytime you wish. We believe you to be quite capable in this task without our interference. Someone may call with a question now and then."
No one else asked a question. She said, "Keep the packets sent to you. We've arranged dinner for you so you can get to know each other. Thank you and good evening."
We were given dinner information and left. We found out at dinner we were from four different cities about the same size, all in college, all working toward degrees in the social areas. We swapped names, numbers, drank wine, ate and split.
We were going to be working with young ladies, 18 to 22, 23, maybe older, who had trouble with males, socializing, sex, stuff. So shielded they blanked out in conversation on anything to do with a normal relationship. We were tasked to try and put them back into the normal stream of daily life, of marriage and family if they so desired. The main impression from the packets was to never, ever, do anything without their permission. Other than that we seemed to be asked to be personal, then sexual, then erotic with them. Make them happy. Give them a taste of life. Show them what every other human being does almost daily but do so slowly. They had to get used to the feeling and how to handle it before moving along.
Her name was Joni. She was about 22. Not slim, not overweight. Straight down both sides and not a large behind. Attractive, same height as me with shoulder hair and beautiful smile. She seemed to always hold two fingers together in front of her lips. Not too animated but talkative on thing things. Any personal area was nicely shied away from and back to thing things.
Someone had met with 'The Ladies', and here she was. We were in a provided place. About 80 percent lounge type with the other 20 percent office type. Medium lights and quiet, not suggestive. Soft music and a corner kitchen for sodas, wine, etc. There was a room with a king sized bed and other stuff. Also not suggestive like a normal bedroom is but more of a useful area.
My name is Will.
She said, "Will, what are you going to do?"
"Absolutely nothing," I said. "Unless it's ok with you. That's it. I'll suggest what we can do next and you can say 'ok' or 'yes' or shake your head 'yes' so you know I understood you did. Or, you can say 'no' or shake your head 'no' so I understood you did. You can just not say yes or no and we'll go somewhere else. For example if I asked you if you wanted to go skinny dipping you would probably say no."
Perkily she said, "I would say no."
"If I were to ask you if I could hold your hand what would you say?" We were sitting on a sofa, about a foot or two apart and I held out my hand. I was smiling kind of silly like.
After a moment she said, "Yes." So I reached and held her hand. Progress. She was very nervous and it took some effort. She was here so somebody had given her a pep talk. I didn't ask about it. We talked of thing things and held hands. She didn't pull away and after a while we were talking and raising our held hands to express something and she held on like we've been holding hands forever. Progress. Now I understood what I had to accomplish with Joni. She was on summer break from college so we had lots of free time. She lived at home.
The next day we danced. I touched her waist and she touched my shoulder and our other hands were clasped out a ways. We talked. Our arms got tired and we pulled them in some and I instinctively let go of her hand and put mine on her waist like the other one. She froze up and looked like she was going to cry. I smiled and kept dancing and after a bit she put her hand on my other shoulder. I didn't ask her if I could do that and it bothered me. I would have to be careful. We got to talking again and animated. She got used to it and we danced that way, resting and sitting and having something to drink, for about three hours.
I explained that we would pick up, on succeeding days, about the same state we finished on the day before. On the Third day we did the waist and shoulder dance for about 15 minutes. While dancing, we always danced slowly, I said, "Joni, can I put my arms around your waist? If you want you can put your arms around my neck.
We kept dancing and looking at each other and she said, "Yes." Then she beat me to the punch and put her arms around my neck. Not in tight but a little closer and I moved my arms around her waist, which pulled us a little closer still, and we danced. She would ask questions or say things like, 'How many are you working with?' and 'How long have you been doing this?' and 'Is this your apartment?' and 'My mom and dad seem to know who you are.'. I've never met or talked with them or know where they live. Must be The Ladies doings.
We skipped a day and the next day we picked up dancing like before. Right off I said, "Could I hold you closer. Maybe your head on my shoulder. Sometimes dancing is smoother if you can move together, as long as we can keep our feet from stepping on each other."
She stiffened up and kept on dancing. This one was going to be a tough one. We spent the morning dancing and talking and went out for lunch and walked through a park. We held hands because that was a by gone. We talked about that. When we got to a point it would always be available unless she said no. She split and I got back to some studies. I had a furnished apartment from The Ladies for the summer, about five minutes away. Joni would never know that unless she followed me.