Brittany's Hands

I know this young woman named Brittany. She's in her early twenties, shapely, very athletic. Brown eyes, a broad smile, and a flowing cascade of long, wavy, dark brown hair. Brittany must stand five foot eight or five foot nine, broad shoulders, and did I say athletic? A laughing big-maned valkyrie goddess. She's always running off on a free evening to play intramural this and intramural that.

I know Brittany because I'm a friend of the family; or to put a finer point on it, her dad and I are good friends. We've been buddies for years.

Another thing about Brittany is, her hands. Brittany has large, oversized hands, as if her hands kept growing even after the rest of her reached a tall, sturdy stature. The smooth, broad backs of her hands, the thick but long womanly fingers with the rounded nails kept trimmed athlete-short. Brittany's hands are too big for the rest of her, and since the rest of her is larger than life, that's saying a lot. Sometimes she tries to hide the size of her hands by wearing big, elaborate bracelets which ride down and partially obscure the backs of her hands.

But the size of Brittany's hands will not be hid. The smooth backs of her hands are unusually long, and even more unusually broad. Big, long, strong fingers. My hands are seven and a quarter inches long by three and a half inches wide, which is not so small for a man; but Brittany's hands dwarf mine. Brittany's hands are at least four inches wide, and a good eight and a half inches long from wrist joint to the tip of her middle finger.

And strong! An aunt of Brittany's once told me how, at a picnic, there was a jar of pickles no one else could get open, it was stuck, and Brittany took that jar in her hands and twisted the lid off with ease. Several times I've had occasion to shake Brittany's hand, and I can tell you, as her large hand wraps around and enfolds and completely engulfs my hand, like a good athlete she grips as good as she gets.

Once Brittany bummed a ride off of me. (Her car was in the shop.) Now, like I say, I'm a friend of the family; I've always behaved honorably toward Brittany, and I always would. But it was not easy to concentrate on the road as Brittany sat in the passenger seat beside me, carrying on an animated conversation and... well, Brittany talks with her hands. As I drove down the highway, I kept getting distracted by Brittany's large, beautiful hands waving and gesturing in the air in front of her.

Then somehow in her torrent of gab, Brittany let slip with a stray remark which nearly put us in the ditch. She said, "My hands are too big, and I don't like wearing gloves." And to punctuate her point, she reached over and was waving her big, smooth, young woman's hands almost right in front of me, as if to show me how big her hands are.

I tell you, I nearly went off into the ditch. And I was thinking to myself, "Dammit, girl, don't you know that to me that's talking dirty??!"