The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever (18 page)

Betty-Jo had decided that she didn't much
care for Cynthia salesperson.

She knows Brad too well. And she's treating
me as if I'm some kind of store window mannequin being fitted for
display purposes. Well maybe I am, but she's ignorant when it comes
to bra sizes.

"Actually, I wear a 37D."

"Then it's fortunate that Brad brought you
here, because you're wearing a poorly fitted bra." Cynthia prodded
her breast. "It doesn't fit here or here, does it?"

"Better listen to Cynthia, she knows her
lingerie," Brad said, as Cynthia walked away. "Let's start with the
bra. Something black and sheer that covers your polka dots, but
allows them to jut into the fabric. I like the looks of this lejaby
number from Paris."

"It does look hot."

"The panties should ride high on your hips,
but have enough material so my imagination is given a workout. We
men are a visual lot. What I want are panties that I'll enjoy
watching you lounge around in—lounging panties."

"There's no such thing."

"Good. That means I can take credit for
having invented them. Here. Try these on." Brad stepped into the
change room with her, and watched as she did her lingerie-modeling
thing. He made a few adjustments before he thrust her breasts
upward, gazing in awe as they surged above the top of the sheer
black fabric.

"Fantastic! Whether D or double D, you have
marvelous cupcakes."

"Cupcakes?"

He nibbled her ear. "Cupcakes just occurred
to me with all the talk about cup size. The word 'breast' makes
your pleasure pals sound too anatomical, and tits are something you
might find on a pig."

"Those are teats."

"Exactly my point. Cupcakes, on the other
hand, are what you have. Trust me on this one—like Karnak the
Magnificent—I can discern the difference."

"I guess they could be cupcakes." She cupped
her bra-covered breasts. "But you'd better not start calling them
Hostess One and Two."

The cupcake inventor laughed. "I'll get some
bra and panty sets in white and gold, and some garter belts and
stockings."

Betty-Jo was still annoyed at the way Cynthia
salesperson had treated her, and she wasn't amused that Brad
actually seemed to like the floozy. But I know how to get even with
him. When he returned with his lingerie selections, she teased him
unmercifully—it was in the way she moved out of her black, and into
her gold lingerie. Soon he was beside himself.

"Tawny Cat, what's the name of my beauty
spot?" He outlined it with his finger.

She looked at him in disbelief. Then she
smiled and stretched provocatively. "Please Do Me Brad. Take your
Tawny Cat's breath away."

They made awkward, sensuous love in the
change room, with one of his hands clamped firmly over her
mouth...

"Come again soon," Cynthia called after them
as they left.

Brad grinned. "Don't worry, we will," B-J
replied over her shoulder. Then she kissed Brad on the cheek, and
danced him into the bright mid-day sun.

"Brad," she said as they twirled down the
street, her shopping bag flying, "how many women have you...have
you slept with?"

"Let me think." He stopped twirling her, and
started to count with his fingers, pausing on occasion to smile.
"Do you really want to know?"

Anguish engulfed her. "No," she said.

He tilted her face up, and forced her to look
into his eyes. In them, she met a more serious Brad than she had
previously known.

"I'll tell you all you need to know. I have
loved only one woman, I love only one woman, and I will forever
love only one woman. You, Tawny Cat!"

She floated on the velvet and leather caress
of his words. "Because you fancy my new panties, that sadly, I'm
not allowed to wear," she said.

"Because I fancy you—and don't worry, we'll
find more than a few occasions when you can wear your lounging
panties."

She pulled herself against him, and closed
her eyes to hold back the tears. "What do you fancy most about
me?"

He grinned at her. "'How do I love thee? Let
me count the ways.' For starters, I've never met a nympho I didn't
love—they're a prerequisite for non-stop fun." She tried to hit
him, but couldn't because he'd pulled her even closer to him. "But
'most of all, I love that you love me.'"

She hid her face in his shoulder, and
breathed him in. "For how long will you love me?"

"The seas will dry, the stars will cry, and
the earth will spin off into space, pursued by a comet, but that
will only be the beginning of my love for you."

She kissed him long and hard, and then
wouldn't let him go. "How do you make that stuff up?" she said at
last.

"With you, it's easy. Now tell me your bear's
name."

"I Love Only You Brad...."

Betty-Jo was circumspect in her selection of
the lingerie that she would take to Brads'. He was observant when
it came to her underwear, but then, all men seemed to find it
fascinating. She hurried, as she thought about him. How can I be
missing him so much when we've only been apart for an hour?

When he'd dropped her off at The Princess
he'd said, "Don't worry about nightgowns, you won't be needing
them, but you might consider packing a teddy or two." He'd
punctuated his request with his Tom Cruise grin. I know darn well
why I'm missing him. She threw her thong teddy, the black lace one
with the gold embroidery, into a suitcase. This I know he'll
like...

Brad was waiting for her when she drove up to
his place with her three suitcases, two boxes, and Ben-Gal.

"You must be tired," he said when she flew
into his arms to be spun around, "because you've been running
around in my head since I left you."

"I am tired. But you must be exhausted from
what you've been doing to me in mine." He laughed and handed her a
gift-wrapped present. "Why, Bad Brad? It's not my birthday."

"It's to commemorate the transfer of part of
you from Victor to me."

"Is that the way you see it?" She stepped
away from him.

"Come here." He tried to coax her, but she
held her ground and pouted. So he moved to her, and pulled her
against him, toying with her resistance. "I appreciate that a part
of you will always belong with Victor, but now a part of you
belongs to me. It may seem unfair, but men are like that. We want
playmates who are ours. We need to possess—especially beautiful
fairytale princesses. If it makes you feel better, you can look at
it this way: while only the naughty part of you belongs to me, all
of me belongs to you."

She pressed against him. "Darn you. What am I
going to do about you?" she asked. Hesitantly, she opened the satin
box he'd given her. In it, lay an inch-wide, black-velvet choker,
with a gold clasp. He placed it around her neck, and did up the
clasp. She watched herself being transformed in the mirror. Her
choker was plain, but its simplicity made her look impossibly
elegant and beguiling—she marveled at how one accessory could make
her feel so desirable, and fill her with so much confidence.

"I'm happy-as-a-hooker in love with you," she
said.

From behind, his arms circled her waist, and
hugged her. "When you wear your choker, I want you to remember that
there's a part of you that only I will ever touch, a part of you
that belongs to me."

"That part of me will always be yours," she
said quietly.

"Promise?" He pulled her hair, forcing her to
look back at him.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. "I
promise," she said.

"You may only wear this choker when you're
with me. You and your choker are a dangerous combination that will
do terrible things to men. It will create uncontrollable desires in
them—cravings run amuck!" He had a crazed look in his eyes as he
manhandled her, while she tried to fight him off. "Of course you
have an alternative to wearing your choker."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"I could brand you."

She smiled. "If I gotta brand my cattle,
might as well brand my women while I'm at it, sez you."

"Don't embellish. You know I only have one
woman who may need branding."

She placed her hand over her heart in a fine
imitation of a love-struck southern belle. "Ah do believe you ah
referrin' t' me, sir. And while brandin' does sound romantic, ah'm
becomin' rathah fond of mah collah."

She continued to study herself in the mirror.
"I can't believe the way my collar transforms me, the way it makes
me feel so naughty.

"Nice is often not good, but there's nothing
wrong with naughty—'saves Santa a trip come Christmas.'"

Betty-Jo laughed. "Seriously Brad, what if my
love for you is an addiction?"

"We can only hope. But the difficulty will
come in making your addiction last."

"Why will that be difficult?"

"I wish I knew. But for whatever reason,
after five or six years of living together, only one in twenty
couples is still deeply in love."

"You're scaring me."

"As best I can tell, it's mostly the men's
fault. Men realize that they must have a woman who loves them. They
instinctively understand that the only real happiness in life is to
love and be loved. So they put a huge effort into finding that
love."

She rubbed against him. "You didn't put much
effort into finding me."

"I put more effort into finding you than
you're aware of. But unlike most men, I'm going to put even more
effort into keeping you. While most men are off seeking other
worlds to conquer, their love dies of loneliness and neglect. Then,
even if they're successful in their other endeavors, they wake up
one morning, and find that their life is empty. The one thing that
gave it meaning is irretrievably lost."

"Fortunately for you, you have a low
maintenance princess. A bunch of hugs and kisses, plus a couple of
tune-ups each day, and your Tawny Cat will be purring for you like
a kitten."

"I'm thrilled about the purring, but I want
our love to do more than last. I want it to flourish and grow."

She kissed him. "I think I have part of the
solution. When I told daddy that I was moving in with you, he asked
me if I loved you. I told him that I would always love you, but
that I didn't know why. "Tiger", he said, "don't worry about the
why of it. 'The heart has its reasons, which reason does not
understand.'"

"'The heart has its reasons, which reason
does not understand,'" Brad repeated. That's the first thing that's
made any sense to me since I met you."

"Then daddy said, 'Always set aside time each
day to discuss your hopes, your fears, and your dreams. If you
always make time for each other, your love can only grow stronger
and deeper.'"

"That's not a problem. My problem will be
making time for anything other than you."

Betty-Jo took Brad in her arms, and kissed
him again. It was the sexy one, like the one she'd given him at the
amusement park: it opened doors, captured rainbows, and set reality
adrift.

A Tawny
Working Girl?

Brad was excited about taking Betty-Jo for
dinner at The Lover's Place at Murrels Inlet. Apparently, so was
she, because she used more makeup than usual: mascara, smoky-green
eye shadow with a dark green liner, a hint of blush, and neutral
pink lipstick with a touch of sheer gloss. She scrunched her hair
with mousse to create a windblown tawny-animal effect; painted her
normally unpolished nails the emerald-green color of her eyes, and
added a splash of lavender perfume to make herself irresistible.
Then it was his turn. He dressed her in a clinging, white
workout-top, a white garter-belt with white stockings, a white
cotton and linen peasant-skirt, and large silver hoop earrings. For
contrast, he selected a black-suede belt and her black-velvet
choker—no panties.

His work complete, he stepped back for a
panoramic view, and could not believe the wonder he'd created. The
white spandex top fit Betty-Jo like a second skin, accentuating the
rounded contours of her breasts with their perky tips. She was
beyond stunning, but more than anything, it was her emerald-green
eyes that captivated him. They embraced and seduced him.

"A dish fit for the gods," he said. "They
should make you buy a permit to look that gorgeous."

* * *

Brad moved her to the mirror, and she watched
him kiss and nibble the nape of her neck, while his hands caressed
her breasts, before moving down her flat belly, and then out along
her jutting hips.

"'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the
fairest of us all?'" he said. She studied herself in the mirror,
and smiled—big time. I've never looked so good, she thought. "And
the mirror replied?"

"...Tawny Cat."

"Nope. The mirror said, 'It's you,
Brad.'"

"You rotten lover! You set me up! So now it's
your turn to look in the mirror."

Brad took his turn

"Look down in the corner. It says, "'objects
in the mirror are dumber than they appear.'"

Brad laughed. "Stop that, Tawny Cat," he
said. "The mirror knows that you're the fairest. And if it doesn't,
we'll break it and buy one that does. Now let's get out of here,
before you have me so spellbound that the only dinner that
interests me is you."

Love that lavender perfume....

When they arrived outside The Lover's Place,
Brad reached under Betty-Jo's skirt.

"Just checking to make sure you're still
pantyless."

"You're a real humanitarian. First you evict
my panties from their home, and then you move in."

"While normally I hate to see anything
without a home, there's something intoxicating about the thought of
you without panties."

"It's nice that you think that way," she
said, while doing nothing to discourage his reconnaissance, "but
you already know that I'm not wearing panties, because it was you
who dressed me."