by Alison Tyler
Was it too early to drink?
“Merry Christmas,” Simon said when he awoke.
They had agreed no gifts, no fuss. She would have preferred no tree, but Simon already had one up when he had first taken her back to his apartment. She hadn’t pegged him as the Christmas-tree type. She had had plenty of time to speculate on his type during the semester, which she spent in the back of his Victorian novel seminar, biding her time until after finals when he would ask her out without asking to get fired from his job.
“Come on. I’ll make you breakfast.”
He had already gotten up and put on jeans and a T-shirt. She picked up the shirt he had worn yesterday from off the back of a chair. It almost came down to her knees and made her feel very small.
“You all right?” he asked as he chopped scallions for an omelet.
“Tell me a story?”
“What kind of story?”
“A Christmas story.”
“You mean like Dickens?”
“No, I don’t want a moral.”
“An immoral Christmas story?”
“Yeah.”
“The Victorians wrote a lot of immoral stories, but I don’t know if any of them were Christmas stories.”
“They did?”
“Yeah,Victorians were obsessed with their porn. It was all about incest and spanking.”
“It was?”
“Yeah. Pretty wild stuff.”
“Oh.”
Laura lost her nerve and ate her omelet in silence. It was all about incest and spanking. She repeated his words in her head, trying to recall his tone of voice, looking for any hint as to how he felt about them. Did he see her blush? Could he detect the feeling in her core of being found out, of having her deepest secrets writ large as a nineteenth-century literary phenomena?
“You seem down,” he said when they were sitting on the couch.
“It’s just Christmas. I’ll get over it.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“You mean like presents? We said no presents.”
“I mean like anything.”
“Do you have any of those stories?”
“What stories?”
“Victorian stories.”
“The dirty ones?”
“Yeah.”
“Not here. I have some at my office.”
“Do you like them?”
This was her big question and she hoped he would just answer it.
“They’re pretty trashy, but…”
“But?”
“They can be kind of hot.”
“Even the…”
Her words faded away but Simon—bless him—filled in the blanks.
“Even the incest and spanking?”
“Yeah.”
“What will you do if I say yes?”
“You mean will I be disgusted and storm back to the women’s studies collective?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Then, yes, even the incest and spanking.”
She could tell it was hard for him to say.
“Will you do it?”
That was hard for her to say.
“What?” he asked, but only because he didn’t know what to say. It was his turn to feel found out.
“For me.”
“Really?”
“For Christmas.”
“You want everything?”
“Yeah.”
He turned a corner in his head and his voice changed from apprehensive to wicked.
“You need everything, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Even the naughty parts?”
Just like that, Laura was wet.
“Even the naughty parts.”
“It’s extra naughty on Christmas.”
“That’s what I want for Christmas. Make it as naughty as you can. Just like the Victorians.”
As naughty as you can was pretty bold. Simon wondered if she knew what he was really capable of.
“You’ll do as I say?”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes, Daddy,’” he corrected, filling in the final piece of the puzzle.
“Yes, Daddy.”
She had to close her eyes and follow his lead on faith. It made her tremble.
“You haven’t been a good girl this year, have you?”
“No, Daddy. I haven’t.”
“You know what that means?”
“I know you have to do it, but can you be nice to me, too? I don’t think I could stand it if you were mean.”
“Daddy doesn’t want to be mean to his little sweetheart. He’s only doing what he has to, no more, no less. He wishes it didn’t have to be this way. He wishes it didn’t have to hurt so much.”
“But, Daddy, it’s Christmas. Please don’t ruin my Christmas.”
“I’m so sorry, Laura. After what you’ve done, I’m afraid I have no choice.You’ll have to be punished before any of us will feel any better, okay?”
“It’ll hurt too much. Please, Daddy.What if I can’t take it?”
“Bend over, Laura. That’s fine. The arm of the couch will do.”
“But I don’t know if I can be a good girl.”
“You just behave yourself during your spanking and everything else will take care of itself.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“This is from Daddy, sweetheart. It’s going to hurt but not because I want to hurt you. It just has to hurt so that next time you’ll be good.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy. Don’t do it too hard. Please don’t do it too hard.”
“It will all feel better afterward, sweetheart. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it does.”
It was a drama that fit them both like a glove and put them right where they wanted to be. It was a script straight from one of those Victorian underground novels, but it felt as if it could have been written for them. For Laura, this exceeded her wildest expectations. She hadn’t pegged him as this type, either. He had seemed so together, so not a perv, so not like her.This was the best Christmas ever, she thought, even when he had flicked up the tail of his own shirt to bare her bottom and begun spanking her hard.
Even when her backside burned and each spank was unbearable, she imagined the moment after he had finished, when she would look up at him with tear-filled eyes and ask Daddy for what she really wanted. She fled the fiery pain on her flesh and fast-forwarded to the time when he would fuck her right here, bent over the arm of the couch, and her cries of pain would change into cries of pleasure and she would exorcise all the ghosts of Christmas past. This was what she had needed.This was what she had always needed.
“Do it hard. I need you to do it hard,” she said when the time finally came. She heard the distinct sounds of belt unbuckling and zipper unzipping.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. Daddy will give you everything you need on Christmas.”
Christmas Blizzard
Teresa Noelle Roberts
“Another cancellation,” I sighed as I hung up the phone.
The promise of a “blizzard of the new century” threatening to rival the infamous, deadly Blizzard of ’78, here on the far tip of Cape Cod where snow rarely sticks at all, had cleared the few winter tourists out of Provincetown long before the snow actually hit. I’m sure some of the locals were pleased, but it was making for a less than happy holiday at our bed-and-breakfast.We’d been booked full for tonight, Christmas Eve—women who’d decided on a romantic holiday in P’town and either breakfast in bed or a big pajama-clad, family-style breakfast on Christmas morning—but one by one, they’d been canceling.The couple who’d just called had been our last holdouts; they’d gotten as far as Providence, Rhode Island, on their way from New York City, creeping through a near whiteout, and had decided to hole up in a hotel there for the holiday instead of risking the rest of the drive.
Lucie circled her arms around me from behind.“Look on the bright side. We have Christmas to ourselves! When was the last time we got to spend
a holiday, any holiday, without an inn full of guests? And we can enjoy the inn all decorated and pretty instead of hiding up in our little cave.” Her hands slid up from my waist to cup my breasts. “What’s the point of owning a lesbian romantic haven if we can’t enjoy it ourselves sometimes?”
Good point, I thought, as her small, hard hands sent waves of sensation radiating out from my breasts. Our apartment above the garage was the only part of the property we hadn’t succeeded in making luxurious, the only part we hadn’t bothered decorating for Christmas-solstice-generic midwinter cheer. But left alone, nothing would stop us from enjoying all the amenities we offered to guests.“Let’s start in the Lavender Room,” I whispered.“I’d gotten it all ready for the folks who just called.”
We all but ran there.We’d had a fire going against the window-rattling gale, and the room was toasty warm, the flames casting interesting shadows on the lavender walls. We shared a quiet moment enjoying the sensation of pretending to be guests, appreciating the beautiful color scheme we’d chosen, the richness of plump pillows, velvet duvet cover, brocaded drapes. The room smelled delicious, like Christmas cookies (we’d gone crazy baking for the guests and would now be eating gingerbread women and pfeffernüsse for weeks), wood smoke, pine, and, of course, lavender. Yeah, our guests had it pretty good—and today, so did we.
Then clothes began flying everywhere. Soon we were naked and lying in each other’s arms on the Oriental rug in front of the fire.
Just long, languid kisses at first, and pressing together, loving how our breasts brushed against each other, how our legs intertwined to allow maximum skin contact. The warmth transmuted into heat and the heat filled me, igniting nipple and clit and pussy and every inch of skin in between. From her movements against me, I could tell Lucie was in the same place. It had been a long time since we’d taken the time to just make out like this.
Finally, I pulled away, sat up. Lucie’s skin glimmered with a fine sheen of sweat. Her nipples were hard, crinkled with excitement and moisture gleamed between her parted legs. “Beautiful,” I breathed. I moved to touch her, but she shook her head.“The floor’s hard, and I’ve always loved that sleigh bed.”
If I could have picked her up and carried her, I would have. It seemed appropriate in that room with its Victorian aura. Alas for that fantasy. Lucie, while shorter than I, does chimney work in fall and winter and landscaping in summer, and she’s dense with muscle. So I just gave her a hand up instead and whirled her over to the bed.
It was high and puffy and enveloping and her café-aulait skin—Lucie is an interesting ethnic mix that includes Cape Verdean, French-Canadian, and Mohawk—looked both darker and creamier against the purple velvet duvet. I dove onto the bed next to her, squealing, “Whee!” and for a minute all we could do was giggle.Then I began to stroke her and the giggles faded into sighs.
Silken skin over firm muscles, and small breasts with prominent, plum-colored nipples, and the tight, black curls that drew my eye to her pussy, just as plum dark as her nipples and now juicier than any plum I’d ever encountered—I stroked and kissed my way down Lucie’s body to that spot and began to lick.
I’ve given a lot of thought to what Lucie tastes like. The briny sweetness of oysters—Wellfleet oysters, eaten in Well-fleet just hours after they were harvested—always come to mind, but there’s a hint of smoke and spice there, too, and a fragrance that adds to the mystery. Lucie tastes like Lucie, I suppose, and she’s delicious.
She filled my mouth, my nostrils, all my senses. In turn, I filled her with two fingers, crooking them to tantalize that sensitive little node that someone unpoetically named the G-spot. Slick and smooth and gripping, she rode my hand and mouth, cooing and mewling to herself. Strangely ladylike noises, as if she were afraid of being overheard. But that was just Lucie’s way. At other times, she’s outspoken, with the hearty voice of someone who works outdoors a lot. In bed, she becomes deceptively quiet. (For the first year we were together, I tried everything I could think of to make her scream or at least moan when she came. Then, I decided it was just the way she was wired, and since it didn’t interfere with her enjoyment, I wouldn’t let it interfere with mine.) There was nothing quiet or ladylike about the way she was thrashing around, though, or the way she clenched around me.
And even less ladylike was the way she returned the pleasure once she’d caught her breath. She knows I like a little roughness sometimes, and there was something especially perverse about her pinning me down with her body weight and working me over in a lush Victorian space lavishly and sentimentally decorated for Christmas. Love bites on my breasts and fingernails raking my thighs were just the start, enough to make me wet and squirming and loudly excited.
“Onto all fours, darling,” she said huskily. It wasn’t an order—we’re into sensation, not power play. Still, I rolled over obediently and stuck my ass into the air. Why not? I knew what was coming and I knew I’d love it.
With a thwack her hand came down on my butt. I jumped at the sudden sting, even though I was anticipating it, but heat blossomed from the impact immediately, spreading from my butt throughout my whole body. I arched my back, raising my ass to show I wanted more, and was promptly rewarded. The pleasure built as the spanking continued, spiraling from her wicked little hand through my pelvis, right into my cunt. Unlike Lucie, I’m not quiet when I get excited. Pretty soon I was yelping, growling, and occasionally giggling from the adrenaline rush.
And pretty soon after that I was begging incoherently.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Please…” This was not the time to ask a girl to speak in complete sentences, but if I couldn’t say what I wanted, I certainly couldn’t string together a concept that complex.
“Please what? Please stop spanking you?”
She said that just as I grunted out another “Please.” It was poorly timed—she did stop spanking me.
That provoked one other word: “Bitch.”
“Your bitch, though.”
I nodded. Then I raised my ass even higher and managed to squeak out, “Please make me come.”
She leaned around me, nibbling my ear in passing. “Hey, that was almost articulate. Can’t have that.”
Her fingers touched my clit, began to circle. With her other hand, she smacked me again, a little faster and sharper now that I was so close.
I howled as I came.
“Happy holidays,” she purred.“Consider this the stocking gift—there’s plenty more to follow!”
Later, as the storm hit the Cape in earnest, we headed down to Race Point, bundled in our warmest clothes. We clung to each other as we walked, partly against the force of the wind but mostly because we love to touch, even when the touch is muted through layers of fabric. The crash of the storm-fueled waves and the roar of the wind combined into a white noise that we couldn’t talk over. I love the ocean when it’s so wild and dramatic, but big areas of beach have been known to wash away when the seas get so rough—we lost entire buildings during the Blizzard of ’78—and Lucie finally dragged me away as the snow began to fall thicker and faster.
It was flying fast by the time we got home, obscuring the Christmas lights that brightened the town and the sliver view of the harbor you can usually see from our apartment, the one saving grace of the cramped space. We stripped out of several layers of clothing (pausing frequently to smooch) and made ourselves hot chocolate (pausing frequently to cuddle up against each other and nibble).
“I’m still chilled,” Lucie said after we’d finished our cocoa. “How about a hot shower together?”
That sounded like a good idea, but as I rose to take her up on it, I looked out into the yard and got a better one. Snow fell steadily and thickly against the twilight—if you could ignore the howling wind and the fact we couldn’t see the house next door despite it being blanketed in a truly scary light display in the shape of an unusually buff Santa waving a Pride flag—it was an idealized Christmas Eve straight out of an old
movie. The house and the privacy fence sheltered the back deck from the worst of the wind, so it was falling straight down instead of blowing sideways as it was out on the street. “Ever made love in a hot tub in the snow?” I asked.
Lucie grinned. She was already struggling back into her boots before she answered, “Not yet!”
I don’t think we’d ever made it downstairs so fast. I made one detour—to turn on the outside speakers so our favorite offbeat versions of holiday classics filled the air—but that took mere seconds since the music mix was already set up.
Certainly, we’d never gotten the cover off the tub so efficiently for our guests.
We eased ourselves into the water and melted together, kissing frantically. The snow, a thick veil around the tub, was searingly cold on my skin at first, but within a few minutes the steam from the tub began to do its work, and most of the flakes evaporated before they hit us. Some lodged in our hair, cooled our shoulders and necks, but it was just enough to feel good, to remind us of the power of the storm.The windbreak wasn’t complete, but as long as we stayed mostly underwater, it was all right.
More than all right. It was downright miraculous to be out here on Christmas Eve in the middle of a storm, buoyed up by hot water and surrounded by Loreena McKennitt working her strange magic on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” All the better to be so in the arms of the woman I love.
My hand slipped between Lucie’s thighs, finding a slick warmth, hotter than the water surrounding us. I started to stroke, but then had an inspiration and positioned her over a low jet on her hands and knees. She arched her back in pleasure, dancing multicolored lights illuminating her expectant face and her short dark hair spangled with snow flakes. “You’re evil,” she gasped. “Brilliant but evil.”
“Jets are a girl’s best friend—I can’t believe you never tried it before.”