"The two of us, you in person and I at a distance, are going to monitor the progress of your nipples as they return their normal state. At the same time, I will take the opportunity to have you exercise your stomach. You told me yesterday that you had begun to develop an indentation in the muscles of your lower belly, and I would like to help you to develop it further. With this in mind, move to the center of your bed and sit with your legs straight in front of you and your hands clasped to the back of your neck. You are to resist the temptation to lean forward and are to keep your back straight, your arms pulled back, and your waist sucked in. This position will not only bring your breasts into prominence, it will also make you keenly aware of your abdominal muscles, which are to stay hard and maintain the region below your waist in a firm contour, one which is attractively rounded but not protruding."
After a short period of resulting, Mei-Lien announced
"I have assumed the position which you prescribed and am now staring at my reflection in the mirror. My nipples are still erect and seem to be returning my stare. I must admit that I am beginning to understand those Africans' interest in training their women's nipples. There is something very erotic about the incongruity of such a vulnerable part of ones body looking as assertive as my nipples do at the moment. I wonder how it would feel to be standing in the company of strangers with my breasts bare and my nipples rampant. What would it be like to know that at any moment somebody might brush against those inviting little sentinels which crown the tips of my breasts? At the moment, I am tempted to find out, but I doubt if I would have the courage to satisfy my curiosity. As for the part of the mirror not occupied by my breasts and their adornments, it reflects a female figure struggling to overcome its deficiencies. The waist is drawn in and the lower belly forms an inverted bowl whose upper edge provides a shelf whose purpose is to provide a place for the navel to sit. I know that you would admire the resulting juxtaposition of tranquility and tension, and, even though I would prefer a more slender body, I take pleasure in the knowledge that my body is to your taste. There is little else to report other than to say that, as you said they would, my abdominal muscles are hard at work."
Mei-Lien's ability to stimulate my sexual imagination was a crucial component of our relationship. At times, her own imagination seemed to anticipate the direction in which mine was headed. The idea of having her expose her body in a public setting had occurred to me, but, out of deference to her sensibilities, I had never raised the possibility. But now I knew that such ideas were also in her mind, and I took the opportunity to explore them further.
"Perhaps one day we should try to satisfy your curiosity about exposing yourself in public. I am not suggesting that we have you parade along the street with nothing on. There are more subtle ways for you to experience the sort of excitement that purposeful exposure of your vulnerability can provide you. For example, we might go shopping together to buy you lingerie at some upscale store which gives its clients personal attention. In the process of being fitted, you would be expected to give the salesperson, male or female, considerable liberty with your body. If we were selecting a bra, your breast would be bared so that the salesperson could familiarize him- or herself with their shape and texture before selecting bras for you to try on. Even more intimate would be the attention payed to your body if we chose to have some sort of corset made for you. In that case I assume that you would be quite naked while your every dimension was measured and recorded. I would insist that the corsetiere be scrupulous in his measurements because I wouldn't let you wear a corset which might hide that lovely belly whose contours we have been sculpting. In any case, there are many venues in which it would excite me to watch you expose your body before other people, and I am wondering whether you too enjoy imagining yourself in one of them."
I knew that my question would force Mei-Lien to reexamine her fantasies in light of the possibility that they might become reality, and I was therefore not surprised that her answer was slow in coming.
"It is embarrassing for me to admit the extent to which I am excited by the scene which you have depicted. With your help, I have learned a lot about my body and have broadened my perspective about the ways it can give pleasure to both me and others. On the other hand, I have not completely overcome my inhibitions and doubt that I ever will. In fact, I am not at all sure that I want to. If I had no inhibitions, the games which we have been playing would lose a good deal of their excitement. As I told you when you were spreading my legs, it was exciting for me to recognize that I was blatantly revealing to you portions of my anatomy which had hitherto been private. Similarly, when I saw the covert attention which my nipples received today at the office, I was torn between pleasure at their power to attract that attention and my embarrassment about my inability to avoid it. Under your tutelage, I have achieved sufficient confidence to share the secrets of my body with you, but that does not mean that I am ready to share them with others. I am not rejecting your proposal and believe that the time will come when I will want to accept it. However, for present let's return to the image which confronts me in the mirror. I have been sitting like this for quite a while, and the toll which is taking on my abdominal muscles is becoming hard to bear. As a result, I am sorry to report that the tummy in the mirror is no longer as firm as it ought to be and has begun to bulge."
Sensing that prolonging her discomfort would be counterproductive, I told Mei-Lien that she should lie back and massage her tired muscles, instructions that she was glad to follow. While she was rubbing her stomach, I prepared to sign off for the evening.
"It is my hope that by tomorrow evening your legs and groin will be ready to resume their role in my program to make you more limber. Assuming that they are, tomorrow I will put you through a sequence of ballet exercises. For that purpose, I want you to have available some piece of furniture which can be used as a barre. This may require some improvisation on your part, but I know that you are more than clever enough to figure something out. Finally, I do not want your nipples to lose ground. I will not require them to be collared during the day, but I want you to give them a thorough workout tomorrow morning and before you call in the evening. By this I mean that you are to bring them to and maintain them at rigid attention for at least five minutes each workout. They will probably be a little tender from the treatment which they received today, but, like those of the African girls, they are not to be pampered. As the French say: `Il faut souffrir pour Γͺtre belle,' a phrase whose meaning I think you will guess and for whose truth you are increasingly able to vouch."
When Mei-Lien called the following evening she had already made the requisite preparations. As a makeshift barre, she had shoved her old fashioned brass bed into a position where she could use its tubular headboard as a barre. She had then put her nipples through their second exercise routine of the day, making them erect by rolling them at their base in the way they I had taught her. Not satisfied that they were performing at their best, she punished their delinquency by applying the bristles of her hairbrush to their sensitive tips. As a consequence, by the time that she dialed my number, she was more than ready to have another part of her anatomy be the focus of her attention.
"Mei-Lien, I very much appreciate your dedication and trust that in due time your nipples will be a even greater source of pride and pleasure than they already are. However, I feel obliged to remind you that mutual pleasure is the ultimate goal of the peculiar relationship between us. Only to the extent that it heightens that pleasure do I want to make you suffer. I am not an African father who fears that his daughter will be unmaraigeable unless her nipples are sufficiently elongated. Thus, I forbid you from abusing them. They can tolerate and profit from a gentle brushing which reminds them to stay erect, but you should not employ harsher methods. Aside from my aversion to gratuitous cruelty, I want them and your breasts to retain their natural sensitivity, without which we will lose the fascination that we both have in them."
Certain that she understood my little sermon, I moved on to the main topic of the evening.
"Although I know that you practiced yoga as I child, I doubt that you ever took classes in ballet. In addition, my own knowledge of ballet is only that of an observer. In that role, I have always marveled at the variety and difficulty of the poses which female dancers are able to assume, and I have often wondered what it would be like to enter a woman while she was holding such a pose. Even though I have no illusions about transforming you into a prima ballerina, I would like to see if we can make your body sufficiently limber for us to find out whether I am right that the experience would be pleasurable for both parties. The other day, I made an attempt in this direction, and, even though the attempt was rather crude, I think that you will agree that it was a success. Encouraged by this success, I want to have you work on limbering your body so that it is available to be entered even when it is in a contorted position. For instance, I would like to enter you while you were standing with your back resting against the wall and one of your legs raised and held between our bodies. If that idea appeals to you, we can make its fruition the purpose of the homework which I want to assign you tonight."