Lawyer Debbie Does Dessert

Simply being a lawyer could sometimes be a pain. "How nice is nice?" I hissed, starting to get just a tad annoyed. He'd come back later than planned with our guests, we'd had no chance to talk. A quick Hi-Hi at the door and a peck on the cheek and that had been that.

He dumped the plates in the sink. "Debs, honey, we got no time for this," he said, sounding frustrated -- with me! "I gotta get back to our guests. Besides," he turned, "this sets us on our way. You should be happy."

"I am happy," I said, defensively, (but added to myself -- the lawyer in me -- 'Or will be once it's signed'). I took a deep breath, turned on the water, and tried another approach. "Jim, sweetheart, we both know how much you want this," I said, sounding reasonable -- damn it all, being reasonable! "But how ..." I searched for a word that would fit, "compliant ... must I be to help this thing along?"

He didn't reply. He didn't get it. My klutz of a husband didn't get it at all.

Or didn't want to.

I'd eaten the shrimp and avocado starter with one hand on my fork and the other on the hem of my dress. Keeping it decent beneath the table while our guest of honour, the boss of Intermax Financing, showed more interest in getting his hand between my legs than he showed in the shrimps. I'd taken an hour to prepare the damn things! (You ever try shelling two dozen shrimps?) I started to rephrase things when Jim turned away. "I gotta get back to the guests," he said, and was out of the door before I was half way around.

Damn it!

I turned back to the sink, droop shouldered. I stared at my reflection in the window, the tiny yard beyond. We could surely do better than this? Two years ago, newly married, we moved here. 'Temporary place until we find somewhere nice,' we'd said. 'Just a few months,' we'd added, full of hope. Two years on, and we're still here! And to think I gave up a good job with one of the big city law firms to move here. Okay, I grant you, Briarsfield is not exactly Hick Town, and Fozzler and Gleizz where I work is not the worst little law firm in the world, but neither is the centre of the universe, if you know what I mean.

Jim and I met in College. I was the studious one, model on the side, Jim was a jock. Athletics, pole vault. Mild natured, broad shouldered, DIB, (dynamite in bed). A real tiger in bed, in fact. Hence the attraction, I guess. I've always had a weakness for guys that are hot, (and know how to make me the same). But that had been then. Before the strains of his job began to prey on his urge and debilitate his hormones. Now he tended more towards the pussy than the tiger, more's the pity.

A glint from the window across the yard caught my eye. I reached for the cord to yank the blind closed, but just as quickly dropped my hand. I broke it last week. Yanking too hard, or too quickly. So what! I thought. Give the lecher his eyeful. It hardly does me any harm. The glint was my neighbour's binoculars. His nightly ritual was to switch off his kitchen light, stand back from the window, and wait for me to come into the kitchen. What he didn't seem to realise was that whenever his binoculars were aimed at the window the light from my kitchen reflected back from the lense. Dumb, or what?

I seemed to be surrounded by klutzes.

My neighbour, our dinner guests, even my husband right now.

Were ALL males this annoying?

I turned from the window and leaned towards the oven and as I did I wondered how far up the back of my legs the hem of my dress would climb. I wondered if the klutz next door had his binoculars trained on my legs? I took the coq-au-vin from the oven, straightened, and wondered about the clothes I was wearing. The choice for tonight's little dinner -- or should I say Jim's selection -- was my little black dress with all the 'trimmings', as Jim liked to put it.

The dress was short, very short, worn with charcoal stockings that clung to my legs with an elastic band of jet black vines that curled around the top of each. 'We don't want the imprint of a suspender belt to spoil the line,' Jim said, patting my derriere possessively as he picked the clothes out this morning before he went to work. 'If my charm doesn't work," he'd suggested with a leer, "we'll flaunt you instead!'

Well, as of right now, that seemed to be the way this thing was going. No-one was noticing Jim's big amount of charm, just the more slender parts of me. I turned with my Le Creusot clutched in oven gloves, mind wondering which part of me was under scrutiny now through the eyepiece of my neighbour's binoculars. How close could these things focus? I headed for the door with the main course, wiggling my butt just a tad for the letch next door. Why should he miss out on all the fun, after all. Everyone else seemed to be getting a piece of me tonight.

"Coq au vin," I announced to our guests -- Dunkerly, the ox-like boss of Intermax and his watery-eyed accountant. They were not nice men, I was discovering. I'd had to deal with the watery eyed accountant on the Finance Agreement details -- a lawyerly freebie from me to my cash-strapped husband. Every meeting we had I felt myself being undressed by these watery eyes!

As I put the coq au vin on the table in front of Jim I wondered if Duffy, the one with watery eyes, was aware of what his boss had been doing to me beneath the table during the first course. If he had, might he have spoken up in my defence? Done so, perhaps, during the break between courses while Jim and I were speaking in the kitchen -- whispering urgent nothings by the sink! If Duffy's eyes had anything to say on the subject, I doubted it! I sat, spread my napkin over my knees, slid my chair towards the table, and reached for the serving spoons. But perhaps I was being unfair on Duffy. Perhaps he was nicer than he seemed. A family man, even. Three or four angelic kids at home. A pillar of his local church?

"Mashed Potatoes?" I asked his boss, and as I did I felt a hand on my knee beneath the table. It stroked, then cupped, then gently squeezed my knee. It was Duffy's hand. (Trash the church idea!) So ... when Jim and I were talking in the kitchen had our guests been talking too? About how I let his boss fondle my leg, without complaint? I turned to Duffy, about to ...

What?

I've no idea!

But just as I did he leant forward and told me how much he liked my home and how impressed they at Intermax Financing were with my husband, and how optimistic they were with the project Jim wanted them to finance.

I have no idea what I thought I might say to him about his hand, that was fondling my knee, but ended up leaving the hand where it was, and replying, "Well thank you, Mr Duffy. I know Jim won't let you down."

"Call me Issey,' said Duffy, looking sincere -- if watery eyed -- but leaving his hand where it was, continuing to do what it was doing.

"Love my spuds," said Dunkerly, the boss, the other side, reclaiming my attention from his minion. I left my knee in Duffy's dubious care and served his ox-like boss.

"Some more?" I asked, one spoonful served.

"Twist my arm," he said, then winked and added with a leer, "someone as appetising as you, Mrs Lewis, could make me do practically any thing." He turned and winked at Jim -- some macho bonding crap? -- and added, as if I'd disappeared, unannounced, "You should take her into your firm, Jim. Gorgeous little cutie like Debbie here would have us old 'uns eating out of her hand in no time flat!" He winked again.

At which point Jim got up and smacked him in the mouth!

(Fat chance!)

"I'm delighted she meets your approval, boss," oiled Jim, unforgivably. He wasn't Jim's boss for one thing. (But that's what he liked being called, apparently, or so Jim said.) The three males laughed anyway. Easily amused! Then Jim fawned some more. "Debbie does a lot of things to die for. Making mash is one of them."

Gufaws all round.

(Assholes.)

"Bet that's not all she could do that would make ME die," said Duffy, joining in the fun. More smutty laughter. I bit my lip. I can never understand why men doing business have to be so damn obsequious to each another, and how smutty asides can possibly be seen as bonding in any meaningful way. I splashed a third spoonful of potatoes, mashed with butter and garlic and chopped red onions, on the boss's plate. I hoped he choked on it.

"Do help yourself to the coq-au-vin," I encouraged, smiling as warmly as I could into eyes just returned from a leisurely examination of my breasts, the upper slopes of which were bared extravagantly in the deeply scooped neckline of my little black dress. Jim has always been proud of how I look, but this was verging on salesmanship. "My mother's recipe," I added, untruthfully, trying to suggest that I wasn't a toy at all, but a real live person -- with parents and everything. But the subtlety was missed on our guest.

"I'd rather you served me," he simpered, leaning forward, going for the teddy-bear look but failing. More like an elephant seal stranded on a lard-polluted beach! I watched, hopelessly -- helplessly! -- as his hands snaked beneath the table yet again and found my other knee. For some idiotic reason, tied up, I'm guessing here, with not wanting either of my guests to know that the other was handling my leg, I spread my knees. And yes, I know, this probably encouraged each to believe that I was offering my leg for them do with as they wished, but by the time I figured this out it was kinda too late to do much about it!

My eyes went to Jim at the head of the table. Filled with what? Entreaty? I'm really not sure. I don't know what I wanted to express to my husband at this point. All I did know, with certainty, was that my husband did NOT want this evening to sink -- or worse still, explode! -- into unpleasantness. So with my legs now the objects of exploration by my guests, I tried to keep still, and relax, and not offend anyone.

"Perhaps you could pass the coq-au-vin?" I said to Jim in lieu of anything more constructive to say. He adjusted things in the middle of the table. Moved the potatoes and vegetables -- brussel sprouts with thyme and baby carrots -- closer to himself. The coq-au-vin he moved towards me. Our guests did nothing to help. Other than under the table, of course, where they helped themselves, to me. I was unhelpful too,in the circumstances, as I couldn't move. Not without upsetting things. Or guests.

And we didn't want that!

My eyes were on Jim as I served the coq-au-vin, then vegetables, to Dunkerly, then Duffy, and Jim took his attention from me, to pouring wine, and Duffy then Dunkerly decided to examine, I am guessing again, how I might react if they ran their hands on my legs up the insides of both. Outwardly I didn't, of course. React. But inwardly I did. Respond. With concern, then growing alarm. It was when I served Duffy his final spoonful of vegetables -- two brussel sprouts and four baby carrots with a sprig of thyme -- that the backs of their hands must have met, high up between my legs, where stockings end and flesh begins. They stilled. The hands. All three. Six inches from the flimsy black silk of my panties.

I waited, to see what would happen next.

"This is delicious, Debbie, my pet," said Jim. Jim was the only one eating. The others were otherwise engaged. On me. My legs remained apart, unmoving, the hands between them, stilled. Moving from the hips I reached to the table and served myself. Three hands, high up on the insides of my legs, fingers grazing skin as their owners worked out (presumably) their next move. I reached for my knife and fork.

I was determined not to get involved.

"Do eat before it gets cold," I said to my guests, my eyes on Jim. He made an encouraging face. 'Good girl,' or something, I took it to mean. One hand from the three beneath the table returned to the white-damask-cloth covered surface where the plates, and food, and decency lay. It was one of Dunkerly. Then another made the trip. This one Duffy's. One hand now, but only the one thank goodness, remained beneath the table, between my legs. Dunkerly's right. Pulling rank, perhaps? I made an encouraging face of my own, at Duffy, who was picking up his knife and fork, starting on his food.

The solitary hand that remained beneath the table eased up the hem of my dress. I didn't react. Fingers began to gently, carefully -- agonisingly slowly! -- stroke my silk-clad pudenda. Still, I didn't react. Stroking ... lightly probing ... pressing gently. I focussed on my knife and fork determined not to move; determined not to allow what he was doing beneath the table to affect me. After a further, tortuous, lengthy caress during which I put some coq-au-vin in my mouth, and chewed, then swallowed ... and then some potatoes, and chewed, and swallowed them ... then two baby carrots, and chewed some more, and swallowed them as well, the fingers finished up with me. They signified this state had been reached by patting the bulge, of me, in silk, between my legs. Then the wayward hand returned to the table top, leaving me in peace.

"Mmmh," said the Intermax boss, eyes on mine, licking his lips, raising his knife and fork. "Now THAT's what I call appetising!" He winked at me.

I thought it best to respond in some fashion, so did. I smiled back. Though not a great one. But it seemed to suffice. He stuffed a well-loaded forkful of food in his mouth. I stretched then rolled my hips atop my chair as my hand slipped beneath the table cloth to rearrange my hem and reposition my napkin over my knees. As he occupied himself with food I found myself wondering, not for the first time this evening, how much this Finance Agreement was worth. I mean in terms of me. What was at stake here?

I crossed my right leg over my left easing welcome pressure into places that were moist. Other than producing a cocktail of disconcerting juices from within -- that made me moist -- and heating me up in various strategic locations, had I suffered? I mean REALLY suffered? Even applying the dubious modern concept of 'emotional trauma', had their little foray caused me any lasting physical or mentally harm? Was I emotionally traumatised, for example? And how -- even if I might be, which I didn't think I was -- did that compare with the likely advantages to be gained from the Finance Agreement going through?

They were talking amongst themselves, and eating, and sipping wine. I watched, but after a while lost interest in their talk. I started to relax. I let my mind wander. I had learned, long ago, what it was like to be 'desired', as certain magazines tend to term this men-coming-onto-women thing. It came with the territory, I guess. The territory of half decent looks, not bad legs, and a pretty good figure. My mother, a looker herself in her day, always said it would cause me more heartache than joy. But then, she was always a kill-joy! As I chewed, cogitated, and dreamed just a little of this and that, my eyes drifted to the sideboard beyond Jim. It was a present from his mother. Fussy and heavy. Both of them, I guess. Though thankfully Jim had only inherited his mother's shoulders! Jim's looks, and his at times annoyingly inoffensive nature, were his father's.

'Annoyingly inoffensive' ... as in situations such as this, this dinner, when I almost felt that either of our guests could slip beneath the table and push his head between my legs and receive nothing more stern from Jim by way of reprimand than a suggestion that perhaps he should eat his coq-au-vin before it gets cold ... as under the table the guy makes a meal of me!

So much for defending my virtue. Jim didn't get it, sometimes. My file case from work, I noted, was leaning against the sideboard. Dropped as I came in the door, missed as I tidied things up. The carpet it was on was depressingly threadbare. One of the first things we'd replace when money was available. The fire in the grate beyond Duffy needed an extra log. I made a mental note. There was a wedding photo one side of the mantelpiece -- Jim looking very masculine and me, surprisingly virginal! A framed print of Venice was above it on the wall. We'd gone there on our honeymoon. Virginity shot to hell during these ten wild fun-packed days! It had, in truth, been shot to heck long before that, but that's hardly relevant here.

Then I noticed Dunkerly, the boss, he of wandering hands. Having clearly wolfed down his food at breakneck speed he finished with a belch that would have done credit to the elephant seal he so resembled. He patted his stomach, pushed back his chair, leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. Then he thrust his hands beneath the table. I took a deep breath. His chin was low, on a level with the table top. He was arranging the overhanging cloth atop his forearms with the sort of care you'd expect of a surgeon working on an open heart. I found myself wondering why. No-one could see what his hands were doing. And no-one was paying attention in any case. Other than me! When he considered concealment appropriate, at least I am assuming this is what it was about, he asked Jim, "How does your wife feel?" and, as he did, started to feel me under the table.

I found myself flip, from honeymoon in Venice and dying logs and threadbare carpets to the much more serious business of here and now: the dinner table, my husband Jim, the flanking guests, the coq au vin, the Financial Agreement that meant so much to us both, the touch of a stranger's hands on the sensitive underside of leg. "About what?" I asked, off balance, leaving my legs where they were. I thought they'd been talking about football.

"The Financing," said Dunkerly, easing my crossed leg off the one beneath, casually and as if by right, and parting my knees once he'd done that.

"I think it will be good, for all concerned," I said, hesitantly, letting him position my legs as he wished, the nearest tilted towards him. Then I took my roiling thoughts in hand. I hardly saw that my 'dignity', if that is what this was about, and I figured it probably was, could be regarded as so fragile that my leg being pawed by an influential older man who found me desirable, was worth throwing away the Finance Agreement for. After all, I rationalised, keeping still as the movement of his fingers, now high on the inside of my legs, caused a sudden jolt to flip through me ... it was not as if others hadn't done the same thing. Quite a few others, in fact. In quite the same way. And in exactly the same place. Another jolt shot through me.

"So you're all for it, Debbie?" he enquired, fingertips stroking my skin, eyes locked on mine, wanting to be interesting -- wanting to be intimate! "You don't mind if I call you Debbie, do you?" he practically whispered.

"No, please do," I said, letting my legs drift further apart, softening my eyes on his. "And yes, I'm all for it," I said, dropping my voice an octave, making it throaty. Heck, I figured, if he found me sexy, and my being sexy helped the Agreement, what harm could it do?

Other than making me hot.

And blush.

(I always blush when aroused. Breasts and chest and neck and face, one minute softly pale and then, bing-bam, beetroot red! Having my legs caressed like this aroused me. I didn't want it to but it always did, no matter who was doing the caressing!) I tried to think of other things but parts of my mind kept coming back to his hands, deep in the gap between my parted legs, and the realisation that this time he was exploring the inside surfaces of both with a lot more care than the first time around! I wondered if the others at the table guessed what he was doing? But what else could he be doing, leaning so close, hands beneath the table-cloth like this!

"You cook very well, Mrs Lewis, " said Duffy, eating more sedately than his boss.

"I've always enjoyed it," I replied, meaning cooking, as his boss's fingers reached the strip of silk between my legs.