Skilled Seduction....not.

“...John?”

The tentative call from across the unreasonably large store stopped him in his tracks. His name coming from her was, as always, somewhat distracting. Something magical about the way she said it simply never failed to draw him in. But, more than that, it was her tone. She wasn’t angry, or upset, or even worried, as far as he could tell. It was almost as if she was… expectant?

He looked at the fruits of his search for replacement clothes with some severe doubt. There was, unsurprisingly, a vast amount of lingerie on offer in this lingerie store, and seemingly little else. He wasn’t sure if he was simply looking in the wrong places, but the most covering clothes he’d been able to find so far were, like, three different types of what he thought was a nightdress, and the flimsiest dressing gown that John had ever seen in his life. He’d also grabbed some stockings, since it all left her legs exposed? There was also some kind of woollen… something. He couldn’t work out how it would actually be worn, but it looked warm and somewhat sturdy, so he’d grabbed it anyway. She could always tie it around her, worst-case scenario.

John made his way back to the blind brunette, putting significant effort into avoiding looking at the exposed pale flesh on display. He knew himself well enough to recognise that he was going to do something stupid and unwelcome if he stared too long there.

Unwelcome? Sure, buddy. Just you wait.

…He was beginning to get just a little bit annoyed by Gaia’s snarky commentary popping up in response to his internal dialogue, but he had a hunch that that wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon.

Damn right. You’re good entertainment.

Figures.

“Y-yeah, Velvet?” he asked.

There was a long, tense pause. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to restrain her fury at his accidental lechery earlier, or if she was working herself up to- “D-d-do you t-think I’m p-p-pretty?”

… How the fuck does one even respond to that? He can’t just say yes, that’s nowhere near enough emphasis! What if she thinks that he’s not impressed, or just saying it to make her feel better? No, no, it has to be something more significant than that. He has to profess how gorgeous she is, how she stuns him into speechless stupidity with her cuteness, how she’s wonderfully kind, and her skin is beautifully pale, and how he gets so unbelievably fucking hard whenever she touches him, and how his erection still hasn’t diminished from seeing her in her ruined apparel, thinking about how amazing it would be to do that to her-

Wait, no, if he says all that, she’s going to think he’s a fucking disgusting pervert, or a lecher, or some other type of scum! For heaven’s sake, who tells a pretty, innocent young girl that he’s never been more erect than he was when he saw her porcelain skin that was still peeking through her shirt like some kind of unreasonably attractive test of willpower? That’s just damned weird and inappropriate! Oh fuck, he was taking too long to respond. Say something, anything! He just had to keep it polite and cordial, whilst also genuine and subtly interested. Alright!

“I- Um- That is- uh-” He gulped. “You, uh, I really l-like how you, um, do the pretty good.” Yes, perfect.

…

‘WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, BRAIN?!’ John internally screamed, a distant echo of girlish laughter floating through his head, assumedly from Gaia.

Fortunately, there was a matching tinkling giggle from Velvet, and John relaxed ever so slightly. Until, of course, she stopped laughing, and stared at him with those hauntingly beautiful sightless eyes. How did she manage to do that? She couldn’t see him, not really, and yet she always managed to look directly into his eyes with those pearly orbs. His eyes flicked to her neck as she gulped slightly, watching the way the pale skin of her neck bulged in a way that sent his sexually charged mind racing, and the way her chest rose and fell with the motion. He snapped his gaze back to hers as she spoke. “I-In that c-case…”

With slow, deliberate movements, her hands moved to the hem of her ruined t-shirt. She was shaking ever so slightly, which only served to make the fabric rustle enticingly as she gently gripped the hem. “I… I t-trust you, you know?” John’s eyes shot to her fiercely blushing face, turned away from him, and his heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest, despite simultaneously feeling like it had stopped. This wasn’t happening. This sort of thing didn’t happen to him, it happened to other guys. Guys who were actually attractive, with good habits and hobbies. It couldn’t be happening to him, what could he have done to deserve it?

And yet, despite his doubt, it definitely was happening. Ever so slowly, the brave brunette raised the hem, revealing centimetre after centimetre of beautiful pale flesh, broken only by her belly button, small and cute like the rest of her. Try though he might, he couldn't move his eyes from that taut abdomen. She didn’t have any defined muscles there, just unblemished skin that begged to be kissed and nibbled at. God, he could almost imagine the way she’d squeak and moan, yet, why would he? The reality before him was so much more than any fantasy he could have.

As the shirt raised further and further, he got the first glimpse of her chest. Just a sliver of the plain white fabric that held and supported those beautiful globes of titflesh, protruding so gloriously from her chest. And then a little more. John didn’t even blink, he was so fixated on the shirt’s crawling rise. He saw every single moment. First a sliver, then there was oh-so-tempting underboob, revealing that Velvet had larger breasts than he’d thought. He didn’t know what those shirts were made of, but they managed to make her look like no more than a B-cup, at most, where she was actually more like a C-cup. For such a small girl, with her slender frame, those tits were truly something impressive.

And then it happened. The one thing every virgin nerd dreams of, the cliche that you can find in literally any visual novel, the scene that dominates hentai collections across the internet. Her shirt stopped for a moment in its seemingly inexorable rise, catching on those wonderful breasts. It seemed for just a brief moment that all was lost. John would never see them, Velvet had changed her mind, he had known he wasn’t worthy. Then, that moment passed as John realised she was still tugging the shirt upwards, and the shirt was going to obey in some way. The shirt’s edge bunched slightly, and cradled her boobs in a way that made John fantasise about how the beautiful brunette would look in a crop top. And then, it began to lift them up. Inch by inch, they rose, whilst John’s anticipation for the drop grew. There was no way it could last.

In spectacular fashion, the shirt gave up on its resistance. John couldn’t help but add a childish ‘boing’ sound effect mentally. It was a beautiful bouncing bounty of fabric-covered boob, and he had never been more aroused by a pair of breasts in his entire life. Not really all that surprising since it’s the only pair he’d seen since starting puberty, a small part of his brain reflected. That small part was more or less entirely ignored, however, in the face of Velvet topless in front of him, her shirt now discarded, hanging limply from one hand.

“...I-I-I know I’m probably not as p-pretty as Asta is, b-but… d-do you like them?” Her question was almost cavity-inducing in its sweetness, and John felt his heart dissolve into a puddle. So insecure, and lacking so much confidence, that she honestly believed her friend was more attractive than the Goddess-touched body before him. Well, actually, of course she did. Who the fuck was going to tell her that she was pretty? Her dad, maybe, but that doesn’t really mean it’s true. All good parents say that stuff. Asta? Sure, quite likely, but a similar issue to Eion doing it, she expected that from her best friend. As far as John knew, those were the only people to really talk to the shy blind girl. No, no, this was an injustice, and he wouldn’t stand for it. Such a beautiful, gorgeous girl as Velvet thinking she wasn’t appealing? Absolutely not. He could tell he was being more than a little over-dramatic, but even when he put all that aside, it was genuinely upsetting to John to hear that the beautiful brunette thought she wasn’t as good-looking as her friend, who was sexy as fuck.

He realised too late he’d been staring without responding for too long, as Velvet seemed to shrink into herself slightly, a soft frown coming onto her delicate face. “I-I knew this was a bad id- EEP!” He leapt forwards, gently and firmly grabbing her by the upper arms, glorying over how soft her skin was in the back of his mind.

“Velvet, you’re the most a-attractive girl I’ve ever met, a-and…” His well-honed sense of self-preservation against vulnerability caught up to his reckless actions, basically screaming at him to stop what he was saying. To run away, get away, go anywhere but here. And yet… that little voice didn’t have the might or strength it usually did. In the face of Velvet’s hopeful expression, and those strangely compelling eyes of hers, it seemed muted, quieter, more insignificant than ever before. “...I-I-I would like t-to see m-more.” His voice was low from his arousal, as close to a deeply pitched voice as John had ever achieved. He was still a fair ways off, but Velvet seemed to shiver slighter when he spoke nonetheless. Of course, no matter how beautiful her eyes, or how confident she made him, John was still an 18 year old virgin gamer, so naturally he ruined the almost-domineering tone he’d achieved with an unfortunately timed, tension- and anxiety-induced voice crack as he tried to speak again, “If- ahem,” he blushed fiercely, deeply embarrassed, “i-if you want to, t-though.”

Velvet had giggled slightly at his voice cracking, at least. Not all was lost. And her smile was so overwhelmingly happy, John couldn’t believe that it was him who had caused it. “W-well…” She pulled back slightly and John let her, entranced once more by her unfairly attractive body as her cleavage came into sight again. Pearly white teeth teased the edge of her lip, only adding to her allure. “You… managed to get some stuff for me to wear, didn’t you? I-It’d be a shame not to try it all on, right? L-let me just…”

Her slender fingers reached down again, deftly undoing the buttons of her jeans, then looping a thumb over the waistband that stretched over each of her hips. Now that John could actually see her properly, sans jacket, he realised that her clothes managed to disguise more than just her chest. Her ass absolutely wasn’t as sheerly perfect as Asta’s had been, but it certainly looked like it had an appealing roundness to it, and her hips flared just enough to give her an unexpected hourglass figure.

Then, with another shy giggle, Velvet quickly shimmied her jeans down, over her hips, and then dropped them down the length of her legs, first revealing a matching pair of delicate, yet simple white panties that pressed ever so slightly into the flesh of her hips, then squishy thighs that barely avoided being called thick, before the fabric hit the floor with a soft thud, and John realised that she was standing in front of him almost naked. He was still processing that world-shattering realisation when she spoke up again, “John… d-do you want to see me try some t-things on?”

John knew God, or Gaia, was real now, since she was a live action commentator in his skull, but if not for that, he would now be a believer in Her glory. How else would someone so beautiful and brilliant as Velvet be not only interested in him, of all people, but be offering to parade herself in front of him in various types of lingerie?

Yes, praise me, subject! Shower me in your adulations, that I may continue to be a benevolent goddess!

Aaaaand nevermind. He took it all back.

Damn it. Fine, this is all coming from her, not me. Happy now?

John decided to ignore the supposedly infinite goddess in his mind for the next… at least ten minutes. She had all of space and time to occupy her, she could surely wait. Also, he needed to actually respond to Velvet.

“...I-I really, really, really do.” John hated himself just a little bit as he continued, “B-but… you realise this is a l-lingerie store, so…”

The blush in her cheeks somehow managed to flare even brighter, and her eyes widened, prompting an internal sigh from John. He couldn’t have deceived her without feeling like shit, but he knew that she was all too likely to take it back now. “...I don’t mind.” His eyes snapped back up to her face, where a small smile played across her lips.

With altogether too much obvious enthusiasm, he said, “R-really?! Hang on, l-let me put these together properly!”
In just a minute, to the soundtrack of her tinkling laughter, John had sorted through the various outfits of lingerie and put together his favourite three, along with a fourth which he ran to fetch that… well, he’d definitely ask her if she was willing to wear that one before giving it to her.

He looked at the arrayed options, picking up his first choice and turning to the blind brunette, then paused. “...Are you sure you won’t be uncomfortable, Velvet?”

That wide, honest smile filled her face again. “I-I’m certain. Just the fact that you asked… I trust you.” John swore he could feel every single beat of his heart echoing in the pause that followed. “So… do you have the first outfit ready?”

“Y-Yes!” He reached and picked it up. In his hands, it looked far less impressive, but the picture his mind’s eye painted of it on Velvet’s body was simply glorious.