by Kara Bryn
"Well," I said, trying to match her confidence, "It's not the regular kind of erotic story. It's quite niche."
"Niche isn't always bad," Elisa said, indicating neither encouragement nor dismissal.
"I mean, it's not fifty shades or anything," I continued, "It's about a woman, maybe a little older, perhaps in her thirties… well, she begins to discover her sexuality in ways that she'd never dreamt of."
Elisa remained silent. I knew that was a trick to keep me talking when I was looking for confirmation, but knowing about it didn't mean I was immune to its effect. I continued.
"It all starts with a dare, that she makes to herself, to try to become this new woman. And as she sheds her old ways she, well, she sheds her clothes along the way as well."
Elisa smiled, almost smirking. "So you're talking about ENF? Embarrassed nude female stories?" she asked me.
I looked down involuntarily. I hadn't wanted my story idea to be pigeon-holed so quickly.
"Well, yes, kind of," I said, "But not quite as simple as that. I want to explore her view of things from the inside, and for the reader to follow her journey as a supporter as well as an observer."
Elisa's smirk remained. "Don't worry," she said, "I'm not dismissing the idea. For now."
The "for now" part of that sentence rang loud in my ears.
"We haven't published that kind of story before, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't," she added.
It was my turn to remain silent. Perhaps she was open to publishing my work after all? Elisa was pretty much the boss at one of the biggest erotic publishing houses in the world and if I could get her on side then I had it made. She was the first to break the silence.
"So there's a lot of public nudity, embarrassment, perhaps a hint of girl-on-girl?" she asked.
I felt myself blush: it was as if she had read the story before I'd even written it.
"I think there's a bit more to it than just that," I replied, "I know there are a lot of clichés in the genre, but I think by rounding the characters out I can broaden the appeal."
Elisa let out a half laugh. I could tell what she was thinking: "I've heard that before."
"Well, if you didn’t have a couple of non-erotic books under your belt already I think we'd be ending the conversation here," she said, "But at least we know you can write. The question is: can you write erotica?"
"Well, I-" I started before Elisa interrupted.
"Tell me," she said," if you want to tell the story from the inside, what kind of experience do you have in this area?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, "It's not like I'm writing from first-hand experience, but then again not everything an author writes has to be, does it?"
"Of course not!" she said dismissively, "But not every experience is as easy to gain. You wouldn't expect someone to write a book about skydiving if they'd never jumped out of a plane, for example."
"Yes, but… I mean…" I wasn't really sure how to argue against that logic.
Elisa let out a deep sigh with more than a hint of exasperation.
"Look," she said, "I'm not saying you have to live your character's life, but you need to be able to write from some authority." I nodded, more so that Elisa would continue than because I agreed. "If your story is about risk and pushing boundaries, then why not do so yourself?"
I said nothing. I wasn't really sure where this conversation was going. It didn't sound promising for getting my story into print, at least not through Elisa's publishing house. Elisa continued.
"Take me, for example," she said, "How do you think I can judge what is good to publish?" She smiled at me, not expecting an answer. "Do you think I do it by locking myself in my office and having boring sex?"
I blushed at the idea. I wasn't used to talking so frankly, which, frankly, didn't bode well for my writing.
Elisa leaned forwards and looked me in the eyes. "Do I look like I have boring sex?"
My mouth opened to make a noise but nothing came out, but she certainly didn't look like a woman who had boring sex. Her semi-open blouse, delicate jewellery and a figure-hugging skirt with a split high up a stockinged thigh told me that her sex was anything but boring. I suddenly felt very plain and dowdy in my buttoned cotton dress with its flowery pattern.
A silence came over us. I could hear the murmur of a couple of other diners down the other end of the long, thin restaurant, but my Italian language skills were nowhere near good enough to be able to make out their conversation. Besides, I was preoccupied by the thought that I was losing Elisa's initial interest in my idea.
Elisa broke the silence.
"Are you wearing a bra under that dress?" she asked me.
"Well, of course!" I blurted out.
"You don't need to. Give it to me."
"But… what? Why do you want my bra?"
"I don't want your bra," Elisa said, "I want you to be without it."
"Hm," I said, "I'd prefer it if I wasn't without it, thank you," I realised I sounded incredibly English.
"So you're asking your readers to follow your character down a long path when you won't even take a single step? Hm," she said, as if mulling over the implications of that sentence.
"But that's just… daft," I told her.
Elisa shrugged. "Perhaps we should get the bill," she said and looked around for the waiter.
"But, Elisa, this dress is just a bit too see-through. Without my bra I'll feel, well, naked. I always wear a bra," I told her.
"You do?" she said, "I rarely do." With that, she pulled her blouse to one side and flashed a beautiful, olive-toned breast and perfectly circular nipple. A mischievous glint shone in her eyes. "Still," she said, "We all have different ways of doing things. I wish you well with yours." She looked around for the waiter again.
"Okay, okay!" I said, "Just give me a minute." I looked around for the toilet door and started to stand.
"Not there. Here," she instructed, "It's not difficult."
I hadn't said it was difficult, but I would rather have done it in private. Still, the dress had short sleeves and I should be able to manage it. I looked around to check no-one was watching, but where we were sitting was hidden from the other two occupied tables in any case. Before I changed my mind I reached my hands behind my back, unfastened the clasp of my bra through the thin cotton of my dress, pulled first one strap and then the other over my arms and then extricated the white underwired lace from beneath my dress.
I immediately felt very strange. I might not have objected to being without a bra, but not in this material, and not with this neckline. Still, I put on an act of bravado as I scrunched up the bra and went to put it into my handbag.
"No. Give it to me," Elisa instructed. I handed it over. "I'll put it in my bag and you can have it back later."
I could feel my heart beating faster in my chest. It didn't make any sense really. But this wasn't the first time I'd not worn anything under a dress, although the last time was some years ago.
"And your knickers," Elisa continued in her authoritative voice.
"I'm not sitting here without my knickers!" I told her, hoping that I was conveying in no uncertain terms how adamant I really felt about that.
"Why not?" she asked, "I am." My eyes went wide. "Do you want me to show you that too?" she added.
Her smirk returned, knowing full well that I believed her and wasn't going to make her show me. I couldn’t think of anything to say and Elisa spoke again.
"You think there's risk just in removing your bra? No, there's no risk, there's barely any excitement. And how are you going to get your readers excited if you can't excite yourself?" This was thin logic but I realised I was being tested; tested to see whether I would do what was necessary in this business.
"Fine," I said. I assumed I'd be stopped from doing this in the bathroom too so I lifted my buttocks off the seat and, with my right hand, reached up under my dress and pulled at the waist of my knickers. As I worked them over my thighs there was a loud screech as my chair
slid backwards two inches on the tiled floor. I was terrified that someone would come and see what was happening. It would look pretty strange to be sitting here with my knickers around my ankles.
I leant down and unhooked the white fabric from my shoes and straightened my dress around me.
"Happy now?" I asked her. Trying to project more confidence than I felt, I scrunched up the light material in my hand and tossed it across the table for Elisa to catch. The gamble paid off and she laughed in response.
"Now, see?" she said, "We are just two women without underwear discussing erotic literature. Isn't this liberating?"
"Hm, I'm not sure it is," I said. I felt oddly exposed, yet it was obvious that Elisa didn't.
"Well, tell me how you feel," Elisa prompted.
I thought for a second. "I feel… naughty," I said, and then instantly realised how childish that made me sound. "I feel like I want the waiter to know that I'm not wearing anything under the dress, but I don't really want him to know. I want him to sense it, to feel it." Elisa smiled and turned to look at the bar.
"Scusi, cameriere?" she said in a loud voice, her hand raised in the air. The colour rose in my cheeks as the waiter came over. She looked at me, her eyes shining. She spoke to him in Italian and I felt my face burning. He turned to me and a suggestive smile rose to his lips. I felt my legs close a fraction, but at the same time there was a tingling sensation between them. His voice sounded like a sonnet to my ears and I half hoped he was suggesting that I hang around the restaurant until he finished for the night, although I couldn't understand a word of what he was actually saying.
"He would like to know if you would like a coffee," Elisa said with a smile. So her conversation was much more innocent than I had presumed, or at least the part of it she relayed to me was.
"Oh, um, yes, please. Espresso, per favour," I said in my best Italian.
He turned back to Elisa and they exchanged another couple of sentences before he went away.
"He was asking who my beautiful friend was," she said, "He said he loves the way that English women can wear such light dresses, and the wonderful glow their skin has." Her smile was bigger than ever and I continued to blush.
"So, you see?" she continued, "You make one small change, do one thing that no-one even knows about, and somehow it's written all over your face. All over your body." Her eyes looked at me seductively as she spoke the last sentence.
I knew what she meant, and I suddenly felt that, if I wanted to, I could talk my way into the waiter's tight Armani jeans. I wouldn't have dreamt of it half an hour ago, and now I wondered if I really did want to.
"Now imagine," she said, "Imagine you're sitting here naked. Just me and you, and everyone else is where they are now. Nobody knows, but you know the waiter is coming back with our coffees in a minute. Hold that fantasy in your mind."
With that, I saw the waiter approaching from the bar with two espressos. I tried to imagine myself sitting here naked and confident, that we would exchange a glance, that he would look at my body and approve of what he saw, and then he would leave, thinking I was out of his league.
But instead of imagining that, my mind imagined me curling up in the chair with my arms clamped over my chest, and then trying to wrap the table cloth around myself.
The waiter placed our coffees on the table and Elisa thanked him before he left again.
"And?" she said.
"It was… terrifying," I said, "I would have to hide." The plotline of my book was going to need a bit of a rethink; sitting confidently in the nude didn't seem very realistic at all.
Elisa sat back in her chair. "You see?" she said, "I told you that you would not know how it felt. You needed to know that to be able to write about it."
"Yes, well," I replied, "I guess you're right. Maybe this idea for my book doesn't really work that well."
Her eyes went wide. "No, no, no! That is not what I meant! You cannot write what you can't imagine, and you can't imagine something without experience. If I sat here naked I would sit and hold my coffee cup and sip and, if the waiter asked if I needed anything, I would pause for a second, just long enough to make him think I was about to flirt with him, and then I would say that 'no, I will just pay the bill now'. Then he would bring me the bill and I would pay, and I would stand and, without rushing, I would walk towards the door, and I would feel every eye in the restaurant on me. I would feel them all wanting me, or envying me, or sometimes both, and I would walk to my car and I would know that, if I wanted to, tonight I could reach out and take any man that I wanted."
The way Elisa talked, it sounded as if she had meant it. It was almost as if she was speaking from experience.
Still, I felt as if my bubble had burst. This publishing contract had always been an unrealistic dream. Silence settled between us again as we sipped our espressos.
"I wish to make a bet," Elisa finally said. I looked at her wondering what this new angle was. "I bet that one of us, at the end of tonight, will walk out of here naked."
I raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think we know who it's more likely to be. Tell me: you've done this before, haven't you?"
She shrugged in a "maybe" kind of way. I took it to mean "yes, I have".
"And for the winner," she continued, "The one who leaves naked, there is a prize." My eyebrow raised again.
Elisa reached down and pulled an envelope out of her handbag.
"In here is a draft contract," she told me, "For the winner to take." Her eyes locked onto mine and she saw that I understood.
Exactly what I wanted was in Elisa's hand, but I couldn't imagine being prepared to do what was necessary to get it. I felt my shoulders slump and Elisa read my thoughts correctly. She shrugged also.
"Well, it looks like we have a winner," she said and she started to unbutton her blouse. I watched as she unfastened one, two, three buttons. I knew she was going to go through with it.
Then, on an impulse, I reached across and touched her forearm.
"No! Wait," I said, "I need to think."
"No time to think," she said, her blouse flapping open to reveal glimpses of her perfect breasts. I felt myself become rigid in my chair. "Just unbutton your dress. Or do you want me to do it?" The seductive look returned to her eyes again. That was one step I wasn't ready for.
"No! No!" I said, rather too quickly. My hands moved quickly to my top button and unfastened it, and then the second one.
Then I paused and wondered why I was doing this. The choice wasn't between me unbuttoning my dress or her doing it, it was between me doing it or it not happening at all.
"Fine," Elisa said and went to push her blouse off her shoulders. I still couldn't believe she was going to go through with it, not with nothing to gain. Nothing except the thrill, I guess.
"No!" I said, and quickly set to work on the next button. Elisa pulled her blouse around her again.
I worked my way down the front until each button was undone. The dress was open down to the waist and it hung loosely over my shoulders. If I sat still it would still cover me. I hoped I'd demonstrated enough willingness to join in these games that now we could get back to some semblance of normality.
"I think you may have to stand up to take it off," Elisa told me with a satisfied expression. It was obvious that Elisa wasn't going to let me get away with stopping now.
I was still determined not to draw attention to myself, so I pushed the dress off my arms and felt it drop to my waist. I didn't have time to absorb just how strange it felt, to be sitting topless at the back of an Italian restaurant.
Carefully, so as not to make the chair leg squeak on the tiles again I lifted my buttocks off of the chair and slid the dress over my hips and thighs and down my legs. I felt it drop onto the floor to pool around my feet.
Elisa looked at me with a satisfied smile. I tried to match her confidence and made a better job of it than I thought I would, given the circumstances.
"I'll take it, please," she said to me, her gaze unwave
ring as she held out her hand.
I moved my feet out of the coil of fabric, reached down and picked the dress up. It was as if I was having an out of body experience, sitting here and holding my only item of clothing in my hands. Mechanically, I folded it and then handed it across the table. Elisa took it and placed it to one side. "I'll keep it in my bag. You can have it back later."
I sat back in my chair. I had expected I would have felt cooler with the air on my skin, but the warm Italian night air seemed to keep me at a comfortable temperature irrespective of my lack of clothing. Elisa, acting as if nothing was wrong, unfolded the envelope on the table in front of her, removed the half a dozen page contract, took a pen out of her back and signed her name at the bottom of the last page.
"I'll give this to you when you get your dress back. You can read and sign in your own time," she said, and then, replacing the contract in the envelope, she put the package back into her bag. "And I guess we should get the bill now."
Elisa waved her arm in the air and called to the waiter. I tensed in my seat, crossing one leg over the other and shuffling my chair close into the table. I saw the waiter approaching out of the corner of my eye but was determined that Elisa wouldn't see how difficult this was for me.
As the waiter approached the table I heard an intake of breath. I looked up at him: his eyes were wide, fixed on my breasts, and I watched as his tongue moistened his lips. A smile rose to mine as I realised I had his full attention, despite the presence of Elisa opposite me.
"I think maybe he likes what he sees, eh?" Elisa said to me. I glanced at her and saw the wicked spark still dancing in her eyes. "I think, perhaps, you have the choice of not being alone tonight?"
I smiled at her: the idea had some appeal, but it wasn't my style. But I didn't want to appear uptight. "We'll see," I said. She let out a small laugh and then turned to the waiter.
"Il conto, per favour," she said. The waiter was locked in a trance, staring at me. Elisa snapped her fingers in the space between us and his head snapped to attention. She spoke a few more words in Italian that I didn't understand and he smiled and said something briefly in reply and, after another good look at my body, turned and walked back towards the bar.
