Nicholas examined his goals and motivations as he got ready to meet Serena at the mall. He dressed carefully in clothes that he was certain would not call attention to himself. This was a little bit unusual, but Nicholas did not want people looking at him today; he wanted them to look at Serena. Nicholas was always thoughtful about these things when dealing with others.<br/><br/>It was true that he wanted to get between Serena's legs and fuck the bejeezus out of her. But he also felt that there was something that Serena was missing that was well beyond sex with him. He felt her<em>looking</em>at life, rather than fully<em>experiencing</em>it. And because she didn't experience very much, she was full of judgement that was born of the control other people had placed over her, probably during her youth, he thought. At the party he had seen her exert over Christian what he called the power of the powerless, when she'd seen her husband look at Amanda's chest. It relied on her standing as She Who Must Be Obeyed, completely unaware of the power of her own body.<br/><br/>A secure woman would have smiled at her awareness of what her husband liked, and later that night might have made him glad he was married to her by encouraging him to masturbate himself between her own tits. Might Serena have fantasies in which Christian could participate?<em>Maybe,</em>he thought,<em>but probably none that she would admit.</em><br/><br/>He recalled the way Serena had led Christian away from Amanda, like a mother scolding a wayward child, and he shook his head as he got out of his car in the mall parking lot nearly three hours early.<em>In a relationship force is never attractive, and it never brings victory,</em>he thought.<br/><br/>Nicholas wandered around the mall, looking in the women's boutiques and in the department stores. He noted several options for him to consider buying for Serena when she joined him; his ultimate choice depended to a degree on what she wore. Finally, when he had a half-dozen good ideas, he sat on a bench at their meeting place to wait, and he watched the shoppers. They were normal people of all shapes and sizes, way too many of them wearing black and walking around with glazed looks in their eyes, deadened to everything but what was coming through the earbuds connected to their phones.<br/><br/>It was unbelievable how many people walked around already dead, Nicholas thought. He could let Serena do the same; it would take less time and effort, but there was something just so<em>wasteful</em>in letting a woman of her beauty hide from life and hide her beauty -- which wasn't only physical -- from others.<br/><br/>There she was, right on time. Nicholas rose to greet her but offered neither his hand nor a kiss. Instead, he smiled and said hello and asked her to sit next to him on the bench.<br/><br/>"I'd like us to have kind of a science experiment today," he said. "You look nice. I see that you went to some effort to look good, and by 'good,' I mean you made an effort to dress in a way that pleases you, like you always do, and that's a very good thing. If you look at some of the people around us, you'll see folks who make no such effort. Nothing about them at all that draws the eye, they might as well be invisible."<br/><br/>He looked at Serena and smiled.<br/><br/>"So, here we are and you're really quite a beautiful woman, and I'm not just saying that. And you're sitting here in a nice skirt and you have your legs crossed and there are some very nice-looking men and women walking past us, and let's look at them for a minute."<br/><br/>Nicholas sat on the bench with Serena and looked at the people walking past them. They chatted about some of the more attractive men and women Nicholas noticed; none of them looked at Nicholas and Serena. After 10 minutes Nicholas changed the subject.<br/><br/>"So, here we are, 10 minutes later, and the only reason anyone has looked at this bench is because either they can't sit on it because we're here, or they don't want to bump into it. Not a judgement, just an observation. Now, please follow me."<br/><br/>Nicholas led Serena to a small boutique and went to a rack on which hung a short dark skirt in Serena's size.<br/><br/>"It's not grey, but it's close enough," he said, smiling. "Please put it on while I pay for it; we'll have the skirt you're wearing put in the bag to take home. Meet me out at the bench when you're done." Nicholas broadened his smile. "And remember, it's for science. There's nothing outlandish about it, you only have to wear it for a half-hour if that's all you want, you never have to wear it again if you don't want to, and I'm paying for it." He watched while the salesclerk pulled the tags from the skirt and while Serena went to the dressing room he paid and went back out to the bench to wait.<br/><br/>He looked at the shoppers.<em>Some of you nice folks are in for a treat,</em>he thought.<em>And maybe we'll get Serena's heart beating just a little faster, too.</em><br/><br/>Nicholas laughed quietly to himself.<em>You're welcome.</em><br/><br/>