Helena followed Pareia into the crowded bar. It had only been a few weeks since the nymph inside her had been awakened and she felt that she had so much to learn. Tonight, Pareia was going to show her some more of what her latent powers were capable of.
Helena had already learnt to become partially invisible, although she still needed Pareia’s help with this. She had also learnt that she could sense the thoughts of some women once she had touched them. Pareia had not told her what tonight’s lesson was going to be, but from the glint in her eyes she surmised that it was something that Pareia was very much looking forward to. Mischief was just part of being a nymph, or so it seemed, and Helena had felt herself increasingly susceptible to it as well.
Pareia looked around the bar as if she was searching for something.
“What are we looking for?” Helena asked her.
“No-one in particular,” Pareia replied, her eyes still scanning the room, “But I’ll know her when I see her.” Her eyes fixed on a slim red-haired woman sitting on a stool at one end of the bar. “There,” she said, “She’s the one I’m looking for.”
Pareia began to walk across the bar, and already she had taken on that semi-invisible state that she had adopted the first time that Helena had met her: not exactly invisible, but no-one would remember having seen her, and no-one would give her a second thought. It had to be this way as two women as beautiful as Pareia and Helena would not be able to deflect attention otherwise.
Pareia paused a few feet from the woman she had identified and looked her up and down.
“Is she a nymph?” Helena asked from beside her. This was how she had been approached just a few weeks before, and she imagined she must have appeared much the same way: plain, easily overlooked, and wondering why everyone else in the bar was having fun and she wasn’t.
“No,” Pareia said, “Or maybe part of her is, or was; a very small part, which is why nobody is paying her any attention.”
Helena looked around the room: indeed, the attractive redhead was all alone, with nobody giving her so much as a second glance.
“She’s dressed very plainly, though,” Helena observed. The woman was wearing a dark blouse and faded blue jeans that hid her figure.
“Yes,” Pareia said, “Nothing a true nymph would ever wear.”
Helena’s own taste in revealing clothes was explained by the spirit she harboured inside her, and both she and Pareia had dressed in short, sleeveless dresses for the evening. But in this place she was glad for the concealment that her powers brought her. She liked to be noticed, but on her own terms.
Pareia stood beside the redhead and, with one finger, she gently stroked the young woman’s shoulder. She stepped around her back, running her finger along her shoulder.
The redhead shrugged her shoulders but seemed otherwise oblivious to Pareia’s attentions. Pareia smiled.
“Very interesting,” she said to herself.
Helena gave her a questioning look.
“Here,” Pareia said, and she took Helena’s hand in hers and placed it on the redhead’s shoulder.
Helena closed her eyes as images and ideas filled her mind. She instantly knew that the woman’s name was Lucia. She was Spanish, but now lived and worked here in Athens. Helena sensed something of the nymph spirit that Pareia had hinted at, but it was just a small part of that spirit, and only that part that resulted in her hiding away in the corner of a bar, seemingly unnoticed, almost unnoticeable.
“Such a shame,” Helena said. She felt the passionate, lively spirit inside the woman, the human spirit that longed to express itself freely, but the remains of an ancient nymph-like essence kept all of this buried and hidden within her.
Pareia nodded in agreement. “She wonders why she’s alone, why every attempt to meet anyone goes nowhere. Why she looks at images of beautiful dresses in magazines and then wears drab jeans and a blouse to a bar.”
It sounded grim, yet Helena could see the sparkle in Pareia’s eyes.
“Can you help her?” Helena asked.
“We can both help her,” Pareia said with a wide smile.
The redhead, Lucia, took put her glass of wine to her lips and emptied it, completely unaware of Pareia’s pacing back and forth behind her.
“She just needs a shock to the system, that’s all,” Pareia said, “It’s like releasing the butterfly from its cocoon.”
Helena could still feel the woman’s thoughts, even though she no longer touched her. She didn’t know exactly how long the bond would last, but it would remain for as long as they stayed close together.
“She’s considering calling it a night and going home,” Helena said.
Pareia stood close beside Lucia and whispered: “Just one more glass.”
Lucia gave a tilt of her head as if she had suddenly made a decision and Helena heard the thought: “What the hell: it’s either that or go home and sit in my apartment.”
Helena felt pity for the young woman, and she felt her face burning at the raging passion within her that had never found a release.
Lucia lifted her hand and called the barman over. She indicated her glass and he refilled it with white wine.
“Let’s start here, shall we?” Pareia said, and she ran the back of her finger gently down Lucia’s neck. Then she blew on the woman’s delicate throat. Helena felt the pleasure that ran through Lucia’s body, and she remembered how it had felt when Pareia had done the same to her.
Pareia smiled at Helena. “I don’t think this will be difficult,” she said, and the young redhead lifted her hands to her neckline and carefully unfastened the top three buttons of her thick, dark blouse. She flapped at the now loose fabric to wash air over her chest and Helena saw that beneath it she was wearing a deep, ruby-red bra. So the passion in her did find some expression at least, albeit to then be covered over again by thick, opaque fabrics.
“You try,” Pareia said to Helena.
Helena stood the other side of Lucia and blew gently into her ear. The young woman closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, and Helena could almost feel the heat burning from inside of her.
“I don’t know how she keeps it all bottled up,” Helena said.
“You managed to,” Pareia said with a wink. She had a point, and Helena knew the conflict that was raging inside Lucia from her own experience.
Lucia took another sip from her wine glass.
“What now?” Helena asked.
Pareia smiled by way of reply and then, from beside Lucia, she reached over and pulled at the long tongue of leather that was threaded through the belt holes of Lucia’s jeans. She unthreaded it and then, with the other hand, she unbuckled the belt entirely.
“Why doesn’t she notice?” Helena asked.
“Because she doesn’t want to,” Pareia replied. It sort of made sense, Helena thought, but she didn’t think she could be so bold without being noticed.
Pareia pulled at the belt and it unthreaded from around Lucia’s waist. She looped the long piece of leather in on itself and placed it on the stool beside her.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” Pareia whispered to Lucia.
“Mmmm,” came Lucia’s reply, not knowing what she was responding to but suddenly feeling more content with her situation.
“Can’t anyone else see her?” Helena asked, looking around.
Pareia shook her head. “Normally, yes,” she replied, “She’s not nymph enough to hide herself, but with us here… Well, we may as well not be, as far as everyone else is concerned.” She gestured at the rest of the people in the bar with a nod of her head.
“Admit it,” Pareia whispered into Lucia’s ear, “You’ve never liked these jeans.”
Lucia looked down at her pale blue trousers: she never really had liked them. She thought she had nice legs, but somehow she always ended up covering them up.
Pareia gave another gentle blow in Lucia’s ear and the redhead closed her eyes and took another deep breath. Then her hands reached down to her waistband and Helena watched as she unfastened one, two, three buttons.
She stood from her barstool and shuffled the jeans down her legs, pushed them off of her feet and then lay them across the stool beside her. It was strange, she thought, that her belt was already there: she hadn’t remembered taking it off. She shrugged and sat back on the stool.
“She has a fantastic figure,” Helena said, admiring Lucia’s slender, bare legs as she crossed one over the other and took another sip of wine. Helena noted the matching red underwear.
Pareia smiled. “It should be easy from here,” she said to Helena.
Lucia looked around the bar: she was sitting here in her underwear and blouse, and yet still no-one was was looking in her direction? Helena felt a wave of despair wash over her and felt pity for the girl, but Pareia leant towards Lucia and whispered in her ear.
“Look how beautiful you are,” she said, and Lucia stared into the mirror on the far side of the bar.
Helena looked too and saw the three of them, Pareia on one side of the redhead and her on the other. The wave of despair was replaced with, if not contentment, at least some satisfaction as she mentally agreed with Pareia.
“Yes,” Lucia thought, “I can be beautiful.”
She looked down at her bare legs. They were toned and firm, and if no-one else in the bar wanted to look at them, then so be it.
“Take off her blouse,” Pareia said to Helena.
“Me?” Helena asked, suddenly nervous of breaking the spell that Pareia had cast over Lucia. Pareia merely nodded.
Helena stepped closer to Lucia, and the passion that Pareia was fuelling within the woman felt ever more intense. With trembling fingers, she unfastened the buttons down the front of Lucia’s blouse. Lucia was seemingly oblivious, and even took a sip of wine while she was doing so.
“You don’t need this,” Helena whispered into Lucia’s ear as she brushed the thick, dark cotton off of Lucia’s shoulders. Lucia wriggled in her seat as the fabric slipped down her arms, helping it on its way, and Helena tucked it beneath Lucia’s jeans on the stool.
Even after all she had seen over the past few weeks, Helena was still astounded that she was standing here beside a beautiful redhead, sat in a crowded bar in only her underwear, and yet nobody was giving them even a second glance.
Continued in Just ENF >
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Kara Bryn 