Twice Ten Point Zero (10.0)

He was intrigued: she had apparently decided to include him in something quite serious. He hoped it wasn't political! That was the last thing he needed on this trip, some personal political entanglement. No way. He was going to be careful.

She was now looking steadily at her lap, where her tiny hands were busy displaying the depth of her upset. This was very, very difficult for her, he could see. He leaned forward, touched her gently on the knee, just a tap. He had never touched her before, and the intimacy both startled and pleased her.

She looked into his face, and once again flushed brightly. Now, he thought, she's gorgeous! But he didn't say so: instead, it was "Missy, you can ask for anything you wish. Everyone likes to help, because it makes them feel like a hero. That includes me. Besides, I can always just say no, can't I? I will help if I can. And if I think I shouldn't, I'll just tell you so. Now, ask, please!"

She whispered "Thank you!"

Then, more strongly, she launched on her request: "I told you that I have a young daughter. She is only seven, just starting school. Chinese society does not value women highly. Everyone wants sons, not daughters. The whole world knows that. The revolution made things easier for women, and made women and men more equal. At least, that is what they say, but it is not really true."

She stared down at her hands for a moment, thinking. "Women, like me, and my daughter, have a hard time getting a good education, and then it is hard to get a good job. Men are always chosen over women, and a man's opinion will always count more than a woman's, no matter what. So I want to go somewhere else, so that my daughter can grow up in a different system. I would like that for both her and me. I know that in the right place, I can do much bigger and better things than I will ever be allowed to do in China. But I have to get the proper education, and that will not happen here. Not only because I am a woman, but in our system I am far too old for more school. That is not true in America."

She paused to study his reactions: his face was neutral, but at least he was nodding and he was paying close attention.

He relaxed internally: it wasn't anything governmental or political that she wanted, except for, probably, the politics of women's' rights and social position in Chinese society. In educational matters, he was on firm personal ground.

He muttered "That's a bold idea!" She took that as tentative approval, and relaxed a little.

"Doctor Barry, I think I could go to school, to college or graduate school, in America. I have studied both mining and electronics in technical schools here. I have looked at universities in America, on the Internet, and I think I know how to apply. I have checked carefully, and my country would let me go if I could get accepted and find the money, and many of your universities have very fine programs to help students such as me. But if I apply, I would need help to be sure I do the best job I can."

He nodded, she kept on, now in a hurry to finish up. "So, you are the only professor I have met from America. I would like your help, especially for a letter of recommendation. I know that such letters are required and are very important, and you are the only American who knows me... but that is a big thing to ask, since you have not seen my transcripts and you have not known me very long."

She pulled a small sheaf of papers from a deep pocket: "Here are my transcripts, showing my grades and listing the subjects I have studied. If you wish, you can look at them and decide if you can write a letter to help me. Please?"

Barry looked at her, considering. She awaited the decision, hand outstretched, trembling slightly. This was perhaps the biggest gamble she had ever taken, and the important first real step on the path she was laying for herself. And it all depended, for the moment, on the good graces of this personable, friendly, but formidable new acquaintance.

Barry's erection had deflated: this was a request meriting careful thought, and not allowing parallel processing of fantasies, however horny he might be. He took the papers from her hand, perused them quickly: fortunately they were in English. She had good grades indeed, very high marks in every single subject. Good math and sciences, lots and lots of technical courses, not much of anything resembling the humanities. He compared her record mentally to things in the US system as best he could, and decided that she had at least a masters-level technical background... and possibly somewhat better. With her English, she could, indeed, get accepted, get support money, and probably could hold her own against almost any flock of graduate students.

All of that took Barry only a minute, for he was used to doing such analyses. He said nothing, however, and Missy began to get nervous.

She was genuinely upset when he stood up silently and walked to the window to look out: she didn't really understand his personal body language yet, but was convinced that he not only wasn't going to help, as evidenced by his apparently not really taking time to study her documents, but that he was somehow insulted or upset with her for having the temerity to ask such a favor.

She was devastated: he was going to turn her down! And if he were upset, he could spoil her entire career by complaining about this to her superiors. She had probably, somehow, badly misjudged both Barry and the whole approach. She bit her lip hard, waiting, mentally frantic about what to do if she had erred.

She had things quite wrong. Barry wasn't going to turn her down: any of his friends or students would have known that from the way he was standing preoccupied in thought. He'd already decided to write her a letter, a killer letter in fact. He was just mulling over exactly what he might be able to legitimately say in it, and what other advice he could give her. He had no idea just how upsetting his concentration and especially his silence were. He stared down at the street many stories below for several long breaths. Through his concentration, he didn't even hear Missy as she stood up and moved.

He turned around to tell her how delighted he would be to prepare such a letter, and his jaw dropped. She was sitting on the corner of the bed instead of in the easy chair where he'd left her. The green silk of her dress was now off her shoulders and bunched about her waist, filling her lap, making her look like a strange, pale blossom emerging from a cluster of huge shiny leaves. She was naked from the waist up, exquisitely nervous, actually shivering in fright, her hands in her lap were clasped so tightly that he could see the bloodless white indentations of fingertips on other flesh. She was staring down at them, unblinking, shaking.

She was beautiful - exquisitely formed and in wonderful physical condition. Her diminutiveness made her the perfect foil for his most intense erotic fantasies, smaller even than many of the young girls that he daydreamed about.

Barry's first coherent thought was "God, what beautiful skin and breasts!" Her skin was almost translucent, nearly genuinely white, parchment-textured. It made him want to slide his hands over it. So likewise with her breasts, full and firm, probably 32-C, he guessed, hence large for her tiny frame: proud, solid, with brilliantly erect nipples. They showed no sign at all of ever having nursed a kid: he wondered if bottle-feeding had taken over China, too? And in the folds of her underarms a few jet-black, shiny hairs squirmed their way to freedom, like the finest of calligraphy lines on perfect rice paper. The sight churned his belly into a maelstrom.

Then he realized what was happening, and flushed red in embarrassment for her: his silence, his slowness, had frightened her, and this was a bribe.

He felt awful, as if he had already failed her. It was his own clumsiness that had led her to needlessly offer herself like this.

Barry stepped over and dropped to his knees on the rug before her. That confused Missy mightily: she wasn't certain what was supposed to happen next in this scenario, but surely not this? He said quietly "Missy!?" but she wouldn't look at him. She couldn't look: she could hardly even breathe through her fright, and her shivering became shaking.

Barry raised her face with a pair of fingertips, held it so that she could not avoid his gaze: she was just aware enough of him to wonder why he was so flushed, why he looked so concerned, and to realize that both were not what she had expected.

Then he reached for her waist, his hands - big, big hands, huge compared to hers - gently picked up the fabric and raised it. She finally realized he was trying to cover her, but he didn't understand the construction of the dress. As he worked, the base of his thumb brushed gently against the outside of her breast, then a fingertip slid across a nipple as he tried to rearrange things. She was amazed at how good the touch felt, through her trembling.

Finally he said "That is NOT necessary, Missy. I'd love to write you a letter of recommendation. I'll write you a very good letter, in fact. But not because you offer yourself to me this way. That's not required, I didn't ask for it, you didn't need to offer it, and I won't accept the offer. But where in the world did you get this idea? It doesn't seem very much like you, at least, not like what I've seen of you!"

She looked at him, her heart thundering: He was going to help her after all?! And he was NOT going to accept this offer of hers? Now she was thoroughly embarrassed. Why in the world had she been so hasty with the offer, why had she panicked so completely? That certainly wasn't like her. Neither, as Barry intuited, was the offer itself. She'd never done anything like this, not ever!

But then, on second thought, should she perhaps be insulted? Here he was, turning down what she thought every man wanted from every woman. All the novels and poetry of millennia said so, didn't they? Maybe this meant that once again, a man was telling her how ugly and worthless she was, and in a particularly nasty and backhanded way? She discarded the thought as being perhaps unworthy of her, and most certainly of Doctor Barry.

But he had asked a question, and she knew exactly what the answer was. Where had this idea come from? "Doctor Barry, we have a saying, "I am a child of my mother." It means that what she is, so am I. My mother survived the Japanese occupation of Nanking." She watched him: his reaction, a slow nod and whispered "Oh my God!" told her that he understood. That was amazing for a Caucasian foreigner, and he went up a notch in her estimation.

"She told me many times that we all must do whatever we must do to survive. And she said that we women actually have some big advantages in bad times, if we can be brave enough to use them. So that is where the idea came from." Her heart was pounding wildly now, and she was hoping against hope that she hadn't done something so terribly stupid and unwarranted as to turn Barry away from her entirely. Barry nodded silently, held his peace for a few seconds.

Then Barry spoke again, picking up where he had left off and smiling at her, making some of the panic dissipate. "Don't misunderstand me, Missy. You are absolutely beautiful. You would be beautiful in any time, in any culture. I would like very much to take you up on the offer, and I am very flattered that you feel I am important enough to rate making it. But I won't do so - because I think then you would never believe me when I say your documents look very good, and that I'd love to help you. So I will help. And I will not take advantage of you, even though you have perhaps the nicest body, and certainly the nicest breasts, that I've seen in years. Maybe ever!"

She blushed brightly, and muttered with obvious bitterness, "That cannot be true. My husband said my tits were too big. He hated them. Many, many times he told me I was deformed and ugly."

Barry was surprised at the word "tits": she must have had a good colloquial speaker for a teacher at some time, someone not too prudish. He was right: she had the complete common sexual vocabulary, and used it properly, albeit with occasional blushes and hesitations. He was also astounded at her statement, for he'd meant every word of his compliment, and she clearly was just reporting what her husband had said.

He replied "Ugly? Deformed? YOUR chest? With those absolutely stunning, beautiful breasts? I don't think so! Such nonsense! I've seen hundreds of women's breasts, Missy, I like breasts, and yours are not just pretty, they are truly gorgeous! They are a nice shape, they are firm...."

She went brilliant crimson when he said that, from crown of her head to the bottom of her belly: some part of her mind must have been hoping that his hands hadn't felt what they'd touched! "...and even more important, they are very sensitive, or your nipples wouldn't be so hard right now."

That raised the blush to a new intensity.

He could see them sticking up through the thin silk, she could feel his eyes on them. He wanted nothing more than to roll them between thumb and forefinger, then suckle, but no. He thought about what to say and how to say it, and decided to relax the formalities in favor of letting her know how he really felt.

"All of that is exactly the way it should be: everything looks good and works perfectly well! I hope I'm not being rude, Missy, when I say that your husband seems to me to have been blind, stupid, and ignorant. Not to mention crude and insensitive. What a jerk he must have been! How did you ever wind up with such a person? Surely he wasn't someone you felt compatible with! What happened?"

He paused, then said, very carefully, "Excuse me, Missy, for asking. That is not my business, and I really, truly intended no rudeness. Of course, you don't need to answer or explain yourself to me."

Down in the warmth beneath his robe, Barry's hardon had returned with a vengeance, but he was hardly aware of the condition. Missy most definitely didn't remain unaware of it: her face was still downcast, and as Barry shifted on his knees she caught a glimpse of him through the drape of the robe. He looked enormous down there, far bigger than her husband had been. Of course, she thought, Dr Barry ought to be bigger "there", if only because he was so much bigger in general! But still... maybe it was good, after all, that he had turned her down? She would have had to deal with that huge thing!

Then the view closed. She was thankful for a moment away from his gaze in which to compose her face and thoughts. She raised her face and whispered "Thank you for being so kind to a poor stranger, a divorced middle-aged uneducated woman, Doctor Barry. What happened was this: I had an arranged marriage. My mother chose a match-maker and paid her to find a man for me. Mother and the match-maker did the interviews and set it all up. I didn't meet him until the wedding, but he sounded quite good. He was older than me, and soft, and not a very big, or strong, man. Much smaller than YOU!" She almost smiled at her private double-entendre; it was accidental, too, for she had merely meant in terms of stature and weight. "We all thought he was going to be a good husband, but we were wrong."

She sighed and said "Shall I tell you?"

Barry nodded, then put a finger on her lips and said "Only if you want to: it isn't necessary."

She said "I would like to tell you. So you can understand more about me. A person should know the important things about someone he helps. Doctor Barry, I was a good Chinese young woman! I was a lady, not a play-around good-time girl like some. I was still a virgin when we married. That is a requirement in China, no man wants a used woman, not for anything, not ever."

"I was looking forward to being married, having a husband and a family, very excited. The night of our wedding, we got to our apartment and I took off my clothes for my new husband. I was embarrassed and wanted the lights out, because no man had ever seen me naked, but he wanted them on, so they stayed on. When he saw me naked, he was very angry, and said he had been cheated! He told me I was ugly because my tits were too big for a normal woman. Then he insisted on turning out the lights so he could not see me when we got in bed together."

Barry couldn't think of anything to say except "Good lord, what a jerk!"

She understood. She smiled wanly and kept on: "Then for the next year, he tried to get me to spend all of my wedding money on doctors, surgeons, to make my tits smaller. I refused: the money was too important for our future because he had nothing of his own, and although I wanted to please him, I was also scared because we do not do such operations very well here. Maybe in France or America, but not here. And I did not WANT to do it, not for myself."

She studied her hands again, then went on: "Then despite my ugliness I got pregnant and my belly got very big with my daughter, and he thought that made me even uglier. I had a big belly and big tits both. That was too much for him and he left one night, before our daughter was born. No warning, no talking, he just left. I came home and he was gone."

She sniffled gently and finished "At least he did not steal anything of mine. A few days before my daughter was born I got an official letter. He had arranged a divorce, and it was already final: because he was a man, he got it without me even knowing it was happening. That is one reason why I want to raise my daughter somewhere else!"

Barry said nothing for a long time. She waited patiently, not knowing what else to do. Finally he sighed deeply and said "Missy, I am sorry, sometimes, that I am a man, because so many men in the world treat other human beings so badly. Especially women. I'm very sorry about your troubles, but I tell you again, It seems to me that you have behaved very smartly. You are a very strong woman. And beautiful, and well educated also. You would be a fine catch for any intelligent man who appreciates beautiful, intelligent women and would like to have one at home as a lifetime partner and to make love with. I think it is a criminal shame that a woman so lovely as you hasn't had a good experience in her marriage. No love, no support, and probably a horrible sex life as well. I am very sorry."

Quite unexpectedly, he leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her once, very lightly, then released her. Her heart seemed to skip several beats in a row. He whispered "If things were different, I would love to teach you that there are men who would appreciate you, and who would consider it the highest honor to make you happy, both physically and otherwise."

With that, her heart seemed to actually stop completely, then restarted with a horrible squeezing sensation. It took a few seconds to regain control of her body -- especially its vocal apparatus!

"Thank you again, Doctor Barry, but I would not be a good catch. I am middle-aged, I am certainly not a virgin and so I have lost most of my bargaining power, and I have a daughter already. I am a very used piece of merchandise! Who would want me? Nobody, no man at all, not ever. After all, men always want virgins, do they not?"

Barry shook his head. "Not if they're smart, they don't. Missy, I believe that for two people, the only events that matter are those things which happen between themselves. Whatever happened in the past is not part of the relationship, except that each of us carries our personal history with us. We can't avoid that. But earlier relationships don't count. I have made love to well over a hundred women, Missy...."

She looked up, startled again by his directness.

".... and I would never expect any of them to be virgin. And if I ever find a woman to marry, I won't expect that of her either. I just don't think it is important. After all, MEN aren't supposed to be virgins when they marry, are they? I simply can NOT imagine what value there is in a woman's virginity. It should be the other way around, you know: in every other area of life, we value experience. We pay highly for it when we hire someone, don't we? What nonsense all this is!"