Hand Over Mouth at the Inn

The summer I was twelve our family was on vacation, and we stopped to eat at a restaurant, the Something or Other Inn. We were sitting in a booth. My parents were sitting across from me, and my big sister was sitting next to me. And in the next booth, behind my parents, there were some people including a young woman and a girl.

The woman was in her twenties, pretty, long straight dark hair, and I couldn't help but notice that she had extraordinarily beautiful hands. Large, velvety smooth, beautifully shaped, and long fingernails. This woman had all her nails grown out about five-eighths of an inch long.

So I was already focused with unhealthy interest on this young woman and her hands, when all of a sudden something happened which kicked my heartbeat into overdrive.

Namely, the girl in the next booth started going, "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba --mmmmmmmh, hmmmmm mmmmmmmm!!" Yes, to shut the girl up the woman clamped her large smooth long nailed right hand firmly over the girl's mouth and nose, so that she had the girl's entire face up to her eyes gripped tight in her hand.

And then once the girl fell silent and stopped mmmmmphing, I could see that the woman tightened up her hand's grip over the lower two thirds of the girl's face. And she sat there with her hand tightclamped in place, while the girl's eyes peered out blankly, just barely able to see over the woman's large silencing hand.

And I was sitting there nearly fainting, as I counted seconds: the woman held the girl's mouth and nose two seconds while she was mmmphing, then after the girl fell silent the woman kept her hand clamped over the girl's mouth and nose for another ten seconds. Then she took her hand away. Then in a laughing and jokey mood the woman clamped her hand back over the girl's entire face, the woman's large smooth long nailed hand clamped over the girl's mouth and nose and eyes, for another eight seconds.

My folks couldn't see this, it was going on behind them. I didn't dare glance to the side, to see if my sister was noticing it, because if she was I just would've died. Because, you know, my big sister often used to hold her hand over my mouth. So seeing my sister witness an incident like this... well, I just would've seized up and died, that's all.