hand - it was such hard work - lifted it and took hold of her blouse's top button. It was a bad angle - backhanded.
"Not a good angle, is it," she said. Then she moved her right hand to his other thigh, and higher, and then leaned in front of him. Now he could use both hands, and unbuttoning her blouse was almost easy, even though he had never had to unbutton someone else's clothing before. It occurred to him that this would be a useful skill with children who hadn't learned to dress themselves yet.
"Perhaps you can improve your time on the next one," she said.
He did. And now as he worked the skin of his hands brushed against her breasts. He had dreamed, day and night, of touching a woman's breasts, but had always believed that it would never be more than a dream. And now, as he unbuttoned each button, she lifted herself higher, so the next lower button would be in reach, and this moved her breasts closer to his face, until finally, by turning his head just a little, he would be able to kiss her skin.
His fingers unbuttoned the last button, and now the two sides of her blouse swung free, too. I can't I can't, he said, and then he did anyway, turned his head and kissed her. The skin was a little sweaty, but also soft and smooth, not like skin that had been weathered - not like his own hands, smooth as they were, or even his mother's smooth cheek, which he had often kissed; this was such skin as had never touched his lips before, and he kissed her again.
"You only got an average mark for unbuttoning and opening," she said, "but your extra credit work seems promising. You don't always have to be that gentle."
"I'm actually being as rough and brutal and manly as I can," he said.
"Then it's fine," she said. "You can't do it wrong, you know. As long as I know you're doing it because you want to."
"I do," he said. And then, because he realized that she needed to hear it, he said, "I want to very much. You're so ... perfect."
She seemed to wince a little.
"Like what I imagined," he said. "Like a dream."
Then her hand moved, and tested him as well, to see how he was responding, and though his first instinct was to hide, to shy away, for once he was glad that his body wouldn't allow him to move away that quickly, because she needed also to know that he had been aroused.
"I think the experiment was a success, don't you?" asked Hushidh.
"Yes," said Issib. "Does that mean you want me to stop now?"
"No," she said. "But someone might come into this tent at any moment." She drew away and rebuttoned her blouse. She was breathing rather heavily, though. He could hear her despite his own heavy breathing. "That was a lot of exercise, for me," he said.
"I hope to wear you out."
"Can't unless you marry me," he said.
"I thought you'd never ask."
"Will you?"
"Is tomorrow soon enough?"
"No," he said. "I don't think so."
"Then maybe I should go and get your parents." Her blouse was buttoned by now, and she got up and left the tent. Only then did he realize that whatever the underwear was that had bound her breasts before, it was lying in the middle of the carpet, a little white pile. He dropped his right hand to the controls of his chair and made the chair's long arm go out and pick it up, then bring it close to him. He could see how the undergarment was made, and thought it was rather ingenious, but at the same time resented the way the elasticized fabric must hold a woman's breasts close to her body all the time. Maybe the women wore such things only for riding camels. It would be sad if they were confined like that all the time. Especially for him, because he liked very much the way Hushidh's body moved under her blouse when this had been removed.
He told his chair to stow it in the small case under the chair; it complied. Only just in time - Hushidh came back in at once with Father and Mother. "I can't very well complain that it's too sudden," said Father. "We've been expecting this and hoping it would come sooner rather than later."
"Do you want us to call everyone together for the ceremony?" asked Mother.