My New Christmas Present
 
“I think if my boss had stared at your tits any harder, his wife might have actually slapped him.”
Courtney chuckled. “I’m pretty sure she did. She was dragging him pretty hard to the coat check room after he finally finished his ogling. I swear, I was trying to be inconspicuous.”
As we were at a red light, I took a moment to look her over. Red dress slit up both legs to mid-thigh clinging tightly to the distinct buttocks beneath, décolletage bursting outward with its contents, a face so gorgeous one might not notice the rest… Inconspicuous indeed. 
“I know you said you were going to try to be a little more sedate, but even when you’re playing softball you knock it out of the park.”
“I really tried, sweetie. I don’t want to make you self-conscious or anything.”
This again. It was a discussion we’d been stepping around for a while now, the elephant in the room. My friends had said something the day they’d met her – why was a girl like Courtney with a guy like me? Not that I’m repulsive or anything. I’m just a normal-looking guy, and Courtney’s… well, Courtney. I’ve made some improvements since we’ve been together, to be sure; she’s done wonders for my diet and exercise regimens, and no matter how much she insists she doesn’t care what I look like, she still inspires me to go the extra mile. I dress nicer, spend more effort on grooming, even donated some of my old clothes that had gotten a bit too embarrassing. Still, there was a gap imposed on us by our respective genetic makeups that nothing was going to bridge.
“Courtney, I don’t care what any of those people think. If they even think anything. Hell, he might promote me just so I can start bringing you to the management team social obligations.”
“Hey, you want me to convince him to promote you, just free me up for the weekend and I’ll have the letter on your desk Monday morning.” She smiled in that way she’d perfected that allowed her to to look serious enough to be believed, but impish enough to play it down as if she were bluffing. We both knew she wasn’t though. Here we were, more than a year in, and her devotion hadn’t flagged in the least. If I asked her to fuck my boss for the promotion, we both knew she’d do it and be glad of the opportunity to help me out.
“I think I’d rather not pimp you out just yet, honey. You’re all mine. I’m selfish that way.”
“Except for when you have me dress up sexy for the guys,” she pointed out. “Or the time you had me flirt our way out of that ticket. Or when I answer the door topless to pay for takeout. Or when we go up to the roof of your building and you egg me on to flash the traffic drones. Or–”
“OK, OK, I guess we’re both pretty generous after all.” What can I say? She likes to show off, and I like showing her off. Win win. The light turned green, and I gently accelerated. Courtney got car sick easily, so I’d had to adjust the way I drove when she was in the passenger seat, especially now that she had a few drinks in her.
“Speaking of, I was figuring for the party next weekend, I’d dress down down. Like, for real down. If that’s OK.”
“You know you can dress however you like, but I’ll bite. What’s keeping you from flaunting it? Rich and Stu have seen you topless more than once – I’m sure they could handle a little cleavage.”
She shrugged, but a little more pressing finally provoked a response. “I’m pretty sure Rich’s wife hates me, and I don’t want to start trouble for him is all. Especially since you’re having Erika there, too.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What, you’re worried about the two of you not fitting in with mortal women?”
She made a face that said she did not finding my quip funny. “I’m serious. I just feel like… I wanna dress down is all.”
“Sounds fine to me, just as long as I can get you undressed again once they’re gone.”
Her smile returned at that, at least. It was rare for a come-on to fail at that. Still, something didn’t quite sit right with me. “Is everything all right, Court?”
“Yeah, everything’s good.” A clipped answer like that was a troubling omen from any woman. But as we made our way home, she deftly deflected my concerns, and once we were at the apartment, there was nothing else stopping her from shutting me up in the way she knew best. Tonight, it was Erika sitting on my face while Courtney engulfed me in hers. The two didn’t let up until I fell asleep between Erika’s slender copper thighs.
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With Christmas just over a week away, my friends and I got together at Rick’s new house in the suburbs for our annual holiday get-together. It had actually been Courtney who’d somehow learned that Stu was a secular Jew, and so after years of unwittingly putting him through our Christmasfulness, we moved up the party this year to coincide with Hanukkah. Stu had insisted aloud that it was totally unnecessary, but I think deep down he felt pleased to be recognized. For the rest of us, it was also one less thing to juggle around all the last-minute shopping and family obligations that tended to pile up around Christmas itself. If I had my way, we’d be doing Christmas at Hanukkah from here on out.
I’d always thought Rich had married well. His wife Connie was a good match for him, not giving him too much slack but likewise always had his back in any of her husband’s confrontations save for those with herself. She was a good-looking woman, too, or at least so I’d always thought. Even in simple sweaters and relaxed fit pants, Courtney and Erika took up a lot of space. Still, Connie was a good hostess, and if she wasn’t exactly warm toward the younger women, she kept any opinions to herself in their hearing. About as much as could be asked for, really, though lingering traces of Courtney’s same nervous expression were detectable on her face any time I saw her off by herself during the party. All this past week I’d been seeing it crop up, a general unease. I’d even wondered if she was pregnant, but I couldn’t imagine she’d risk displeasing me with a baby blindside. Was she just having a bad week? I didn’t know, and she pretended not to know why I was concerned.
The formalization of our gift exchange was a new addition to the festivities. In the past, it had only been myself, Stu, Rich and Connie, with a couple ex-girlfriends of mine sprinkled in over the years. Two new bodies meant two new people to shop for or, as Erika cynically predicted, to neglect. No one relished the awkwardness of having new friends twiddle their thumbs watching old friends open presents, so we simply set up a secret Santa and figured if veterans of the scene wanted to smuggle in a gift or two on the sly, so be it.
For a while, Courtney and I had kept our arrangement with Erika quiet, but almost a year in, word had gotten out that my girlfriend and I had a girlfriend. Nobody knew the reality of it, about the love-drug that had made both girls helplessly obedient and obsessed with pleasing a single other person. Luckily for us, Erika was personable enough, and actually seemed to click better with Connie than Courtney ever managed to. Their feisty natures seemed to be of the sort that complemented rather than conflicted, and if Connie felt weird imagining what happened behind closed doors, she wasn’t exactly a prude herself. Love slave’s love slave was too big a pill for the woman to swallow, but I’d heard enough about her kinks from her husband that she didn’t have much room to judge.
At any rate, all that was set aside and people were amicably drinking and chatting away by the time we decided to commence with the presents. I’d drawn Connie, who seemed sincerely pleased with the ceramic old world Santa I’d gotten her. (Rich’s idea; she collected the things, and two of them had gotten busted when they moved last summer.) Connie had drawn Erika, and as they barely knew one another, everyone politely smiled at the Amazon gift card. Considering I supplemented her cam girl income to keep her in her own apartment and off of my and Courtney’s couch, I was frankly pretty happy. I managed to keep the three of us fed and sheltered while Courtney went back to school, but every bit helped.
Rich had drawn Courtney; keen on not pissing off his wife, we’d brainstormed and come up with a thoughtful-but-not-too-thoughtful gift of art supplies for Courtney’s classes next semester. Connie frowned at the brief hug of gratitude, and Courtney quickly backed off. Stu went next, grinning his broad, toothy smile as he watched Rich unwrap a pack of hunting equipment. The pair had hunted together for years, but it had fallen off after Rich had gotten married. His wife had granted him leave to use a week of his vacation time that year for the two to rekindle their old tradition. Stu, who’d had a good year at work, had saved enough this year to for once be able to go all out on the gift. It was a pretty impressive amount of stuff in that pack, I had to say. I felt better for Stu’s sake getting to be the generous one for once than I did for Rich.
There was an awkward silence when the guys were done fawning over Rich’s new supplies as we waited for one of the girls to speak up. The two of them had snuck away to the kitchen, talking in hushed tones, and when they didn’t seem to realize we were ready, I called out to them. “Courtney? You want to tell us who you got?” I prompted.
“Oh! Right. One minute!” Three minutes passed before they finally hustled back in. Courtney paused next to Stu and slipped him a card in a red envelope. With the quiet crush he had on my girlfriend, the way her fingers grazed the back of his hand was no doubt a better present than whatever was in the envelope, I thought – or at least I did until I saw how wide-eyed he went when he read the card.
“Oh. Oh gosh. This is just… wow. Too generous!” he stammered. The rest of us were craning our necks to see what had been tucked inside that card. I truly had no idea. Courtney had refused to say a word about who she’d drawn or what she’d gotten them.
“I want you to have it,” she said firmly, if rather cryptically. “Enjoy it.”
He looked pretty thunderstruck; I was half-tempted to use my phone to check my account balances and see how much she’d spent. In any event, nobody wanted to prolong his discomfort, and so Erika stepped in to the rescue. “And I got Drew. And I also managed to forget his present back home, so… he’ll just have to wait until we get back. Sorry, folks.”
Rich was the first to chide her. “Oh come on, Erika, you gotta at least tell us what it was. Two mystery gifts in a row is a lame way to wrap this thing up.”
“Pun!” Courtney declared. She did love a good pun.
Erika looked to Courtney, that permission-seeking expression I’d seen a thousand times. Courtney gave a curt nod. “I… well, he’s been complaining about the colors of the walls at their place, so I was going to go ahead and repaint them for him.”
“Very cool,” Stu said, somewhat charitably for such a pedestrian gift.
“Wait, so what’d you leave at home then?” asked Connie. The very question I’d been about to ask.
“What’d I…” She looked to Courtney again. “The paint. I was going to bring a can, you know, so there’d be something to unwrap. But I didn’t even manage to get that right. Serves you right for celebrating so early, eh.”
Nobody had much to say to that, so we called the exchange a success and poured a fresh round of drinks. We’d only just declared our gratitude for one another at Thanksgiving, but the holidays always brought out the feels in Stu and soon enough he had us toasting one another, and the awkward moments in the exchange were forgotten. At least until the drive home.
“So… what happened with the exchange?” I asked the girls.
“What do you mean?” Courtney maintained a portrait of innocence, but the rearview mirror showed me Erika’s self-conscious frown.
“Paint? I’ve never said a word about the color of the walls. And you two got all… funny. Hiding in the kitchen and all. What gives?”
“You did so complain about the walls!” protested the voice from the back seat. “A couple months ago, I remember you were bitching about all those scuff marks.”
“I was not…! I was only pointing out that we get a little carried away, and stray limbs in stray directions had been discoloring the wall by the couch and were starting to get noticeable. But until we intend to stop having sex on the couch, there’s not much point in painting, is there?”
“I guess I must’ve misinterpreted. No Christmas present for you then.” Erika waited until I was looking in the mirror again and stuck her tongue out at me.
“Fair enough, I guess. What about you? What was in that mysterious card for Stu?”
“Oh, that. I’m giving him a lap dance. Not from me, actually, but from her.” She laughed, jerking her thumb toward Erika. We’d been at it long enough now it didn’t even ruffle me to see her using Erika like property. I knew full well Courtney wouldn’t mind – even enjoyed it – when I found uses for her, but unlike Courtney, I thought of Courtney as my girlfriend first and sex slave second. She and Erika’s relationship was much more defined by the servitude factor, and Courtney knew firsthand how much her pet enjoyed being petted, so to speak.
“So really it’s more of a present from Erika than from you.” Stopped at a light, I turned to smirk at the rear passenger. “So, are we talking club rules, or…? How merry of a Christmas is Stu getting this year?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s up to her. And for the record, I’m not addicted to your cock, so a little variety is fine by me.”
We both knew Stu was no more a proper match for a vixen like Erika than Courtney was for me, but then, he wasn’t less of one either. Courtney had always found his shyness around her charming, though, so I wasn’t surprised she’d thrown him a bone. “You give him a good time. I’ll leave the fine details up to you,” said Courtney. “Unless you keep being a brat, in which case you’ll be eating his ass for dinner.”
“Won’t that be fun for you when you kiss me afterward.”
I let the conversation wander away from there; whatever had happened, they clearly didn’t want to talk about it. That in and of itself was strange. The last time Courtney had tried to keep me from learning a secret, it had been that whole dreadful wonderful mystery of how she’d fallen in love with me. What was bothering her so much lately? Was something wrong? I tried not to even think about the possibility I had so long dreaded – and of course, trying not to think of it meant I thought of nothing else, long into the night.
What if the drug was beginning to wear off?
We’d discussed it, of course. Courtney had insisted that if it did, she was all but sure she’d still want to be with me, but even if she didn’t, that she couldn’t hold it against me. After all, she’d thrown herself at me, and it had been her own decision to drug herself. It would have been far crueler to send her away than to let things play out as they had. But perhaps it wouldn’t seem that way to her. She might blame me for not trying to fix her, or simply resent me out of sheer reflex. What if she woke up one morning and recoiled in horror that next to her in the bed was… me?
It wasn’t a train of thought I often entertained. Courtney was undeniably the most loving, affectionate, passionate girlfriend I’d ever had, and I never had cause to doubt her sincerity. She made it clear every day that I was her universe, that – as Erika put it – she’d shoved her sense of self down my pants the first day we’d spoken and never intended to let it back out. She never tired of inventing new ways to please me, or applying herself to the tried and true methods.
But she’d never kept a secret from me before, either. Except that once.
________________
Christmas Eve featured the family gathering at my mother’s house. The woman had made an embarrassment of food, the rest of us bringing a single dish so we could pretend we’d contributed. My sister-in-law Dana’s potato salad had gone over well, as had my cranberry sauce, but Mike and Courtney would each be taking home a heap of leftovers. Ah, well. I didn’t love her for her cooking.
We caught each other up on news, reminisced about the old days, played games with my niece and nephews, exchanged gifts, and Dana and Mike even gave us a song on mom’s piano. It could use some tuning, but that didn’t diminish our enjoyment of it in the least. My niece followed Courtney around with an expression of plain idolatry, and while Courtney doesn’t have much experience with kids, she phoned it in quite well. We even managed to sneak upstairs into my old bedroom for a few minutes of kissing and groping before my mom started asking where we’d gone off to in a conspicuously loud voice.
The highlight for me, however, came as I was helping Mike to the car. We loaded their packages into the trunk, and once Dana and the kids were settled in, he took me aside and shook his head, looking in the front window to where Courtney and Mom were sitting on the living room sofa looking through old photo albums. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but damn, little bro, you are my fucking hero.”
A smile stole onto my face unbidden. “Come on, back in college you probably hooked up with plenty of girls like that.” I was being polite, mostly, though I knew full well that Mike had built up quite the distinguished résumé with the ladies. Maybe he’d nailed a solid 10 once or twice himself. Dana was a gorgeous woman in her own right, retaining an impressive body even after three kids. She was no Courtney, but that was too high a bar to hold a woman to.
“Hey, I hooked up with a lot of girls back before Dana, yeah. But you don’t get it. I was always chasing girls looking for one like that. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but seriously, congrats.”
“She is a looker,” I conceded.
“That’s not what I’m saying. I mean, yeah, she’s got the most amazing tits I’ve ever seen, and I’d pay you to bring her to our 4th of July barbeque at the beach next year. But that woman worships you, bro. The genuine article. Don’t fuck things up.”
That was all we said, mostly because I didn’t know how to respond. My brother had never said anything so emotionally honest to me in his life. If he’d ever complimented a girlfriend of mine before, it was to half-heartedly acknowledge they were acceptably pretty. Then he’d trot out Dana with a little smirk, just to make sure I knew the score. Sincere well-wishing from Mike was a thing unheard of. I hugged him, and then he joined his family in the car and they were on their way home.
A short time later, I was getting tired and suggested to Courtney we retire for the night.  Our drive home was a little longer than my brother’s, plus we had no kids to tote around, so we were planning on staying here for the night. To my surprise, however, Courtney said she was going to stay downstairs and help my mom tidy up a bit. With tantalizing memories of our last night here together echoing around the walls of my brain, I kissed them each good night and made my way upstairs.
It had been over a year ago, on our first Thanksgiving together, that we’d stayed the night here for the first time. That night, she’d somehow divined my childhood jealousy of my more popular brother and had made herself into the quintessential unattainable high school hottie, then blown my mind by forsaking him for me. It had been the first night my feelings for Courtney had transcended the merely carnal. It had been sexual, yes, but by showing me how she understood me and wanted to care for me – in ways I hadn’t even known I needed – I’d realized she was more than just a body and a laundry list of kinks.
We’d had to keep it quiet that night; sound carried in this house, and while Mom’s hearing wasn’t what it used to be, I didn’t want to disrespect her rules under her own roof. Or to endure the awkwardness of probing as to whether or not they were still in effect, for that matter. Tonight, after a quick shower and slipping into my boxers for bed, I was reminded of exactly why we’d had to keep the volume so low last year.
“It’s been what, just over a year now for you two, hasn’t it?” my mom was asking. Her voice carried through the vents all too easily, as did Courtney’s.
“Fourteen months, one week, and, let’s see… five days,” she said. Mentally, I checked her math, and she was exactly right. A day neither of us would ever forget.
“And my Andrew, he treats you well, does he?”
“Very well.” Oh, Mom. Always checking up on me. I doubted she’d ever asked such a question of Dana; where Mike was concerned, she was content so long as he was being faithful and attentive to her grandchildren.
“Good. Well then, you know what I’m going to ask next, don’t you?” Courtney’s reply was lost to me, but whatever it was was brief. “When is my boy going to make an honest woman out of you?”
I groaned, hoping it wasn’t as audible to them as their words were to me. Or at least that they thought I was just getting comfortable. My mother came from a generation in which honest women were the opposite of dishonest women, which was a thinly veiled euphemism for slut. The poor woman’s hair would catch fire if she even guessed at half of how “dishonest” we were together, to say nothing of adding Erika into the picture. Still, I was eager to hear her reply.
“I… I don’t know,” she said after a long pause. She continued speaking, but so quietly I had to tiptoe over to the vent to make her out clearly. “…not sure we’re ever going to get married. Our relationship’s always been sort of… I guess you could say it’s complicated.”
I frowned. This was another conversation we’d had, though not for some time. I knew I could ask – or simply tell – Courtney to marry me and she would. It was my unspoken dread, however, which I’d been nursing all too much of late, that kept me in check. If the drug ever wore off – if it even could – she’d find herself legally tethered to a man she might have cause to despise. I tried to think of the woman she’d been before that day, sleeping for months, years, and one day waking up to find herself married to a man who’d let her flash and flirt her ass off with his friends, who worshipped his cock on her hands and knees, who’d been plastered on her face and tits with so much cum we’d actually worried all the rinsing off might start clogging the shower drain. I thought about what she’d feel like to be legally bound into that situation, forced to go through a protracted legal proceeding to undo it, and had found myself worried on her behalf. She’d said she understood, and would be happy to have me under whatever terms she could get me, and I both believed her and felt the same way.
“So uncomplicate it for me, sweetie,” prompted my mother.
Courtney hesitated a long while; the silence was a little uncomfortable even for me, eavesdropping from my childhood bedroom. “When Drew and I got together, I was pretty messed up on some pretty serious stuff. I was throwing my life away on a guy who thought he owned me, and I… I guess you could say I threw myself at your son full force as a desperate attempt to get out of that relationship. Drew took me in and helped me get my head straight, took care of me. He’s been an amazing boyfriend, but… he has a way of telling me what to do that keeps me where I want to be. Almost like a life coach, in a way.”
Interesting. All technically true, even if it painted a rather different portrait of matters than had been the case. Or maybe it didn’t? I suppose “life coach” would be more palatable to my mother than “master.”
Out of Courtney’s whole explanation, though, there was one word my mother seized on. “Drugs?” I knew full well she’d smoked her share of weed back in the 70’s, but she’d still been saturated with enough Just Say No ads to have become paranoid.
“Yeah. Some really hard stuff that believe me, you don’t want to know about, and I’m really, really ashamed of. But I haven’t used anything since right before Drew and I got together. I’m clean now, and I’m never going back to that life. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“I’m a little worried he never mentioned any of this to me.”
“He just didn’t want you to worry is all, and he knows there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve cut ties with almost everybody from my old life except this one friend who I helped get out of it, too. I don’t even like to think about those days.”
“Or talk about it, I expect. I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to interrogate.”
“No! No, it’s very all right. It’s good that you’re worried about your son.”
There was another pause, and this time it was my mother who ended it, this time by returning to her initial line of inquiry. “So if things are going as well as you say, if Drew got you away from all that like you say, then… why aren’t the two of you talking about marriage?”
There were a great many answers to that question which would have satisfied all parties. “We’ve talked about it, but not yet.” “We’re both happy the way things are.” Or even “I’m just waiting for him to be ready.” But none of those were Courtney’s reply. 
Instead, she said only, “I just don’t know if we’re heading in that direction.”
“Oh. Oh, I see. Well forgive an old woman for prying then. Say, dear, would you mind terribly fetching the cake pan for me so I can soak it overnight?” My mother respectfully dropped the subject, and as they resumed cleaning, I shuffled dejectedly back to bed.
I didn’t know what to make of her words, but my mind was agonizing over the possibilities. So much so that an hour later, when she crept into my room quietly enough that I don’t think Mom would have detected her even in her prime, I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t have it in me to pretend not to be afraid of what her words may portend. 
After a few gentle attempts, she gave up and made her way down to Mike’s old room, where she’d be sleeping. The next morning, Christmas morning, she referenced it only to say that I must’ve been tired, but nothing else. Neither did I. I didn’t know what to say. My mother made us breakfast and we spent most of the day with her, and then we drove home in silence.
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 We had sex twice that evening. Once when she jerked my pants down right when we got home, and once again when she showed me the sexy Mrs. Santa lingerie she’d gotten herself for the holiday. There was almost a third time when Erika showed up and the two pulled me into their display of lust, but I was mostly hands and mouth on that one. That the sex had been so perfunctory, so much about pleasure centers and orgasms rather than tenderness or connection, had left me sitting out the finale, but I did feel a little bad telling Erika I wasn’t in the mood to fuck her ass when she started begging for it at Courtney’s behest. They settled for a round of a spanking game they’d invented, or maybe found on the internet. Or in a porno. Then they sixty-nined in the living room floor, repeatedly inviting me to join in. More orgasms. But Courtney could tell my heart wasn’t in it and finished Erika’s freshly waxed pussy herself.
Eventually, Erika headed back downstairs to her apartment – she’d moved into a vacancy in my building back in the spring as it had begun to feel a little crowded – and Courtney and I were alone. After three Christmas celebrations, we were yet to exchange our real gifts, having promised one another to save it for when we were in private. After the past couple weeks, I didn’t know if that agreement hadn’t been nullified along the way somewhere, and I let her bring it up, which, as we settled into bed a little after 11, she did.
“So… Christmas is almost over,” she said quietly, laying with her cheek resting on my shoulder. She had the Mrs. Claus outfit back on, and while the skimpy semi-transparent red and white bra and panties were definitely hot, knee-high black leather stiletto-heeled boots and all, it was a little itchy against my skin. Nothing I couldn’t bear, though. It was no doubt worse for her.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Soooo… do I get my present?” she asked, flipping the little white puffball on her hat to bap me in the nose. “Or if I’ve made the naughty list, we can let the spanking commence. I still got another round or two left in me. Your mom’s pecan pie gave it a little extra cushion, I think.”
“My present isn’t my cock, you know,” I joked. But my voice lacked true playfulness in the same way her hat-bapping had.
Sensing my despondency, she tugged the hat off and chucked it aside. “You didn’t have to get me anything you know. I mean, I know you already got me stuff. The necklace, and even if you don’t think of helping me with tuition as a gift, it is one. It’s cool – maybe it’s better, actually – if we just call it quits for now. You had a long day. You’re tired, I’m sure.”
I eyed her as she babbled. The transition from asking about exchanging gifts to suggesting we not bother had not been subtle in the least. “Courtney… why don’t you just tell me what’s bothering you?”
I could feel her curvaceous body tense at my question. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, hon. You’ve been off for weeks now. Distant, unhappy, not intimate.”
“Not intimate? You came in my pussy and my mouth tonight. I can still taste you.” She smacked her lips.
“That’s just sex. I’m talking about real intimacy.
She sat up, frowning down at me. “I… I didn’t realize.”
“You’ve obviously had something on your mind. So why don’t you just say what you have to say, and then we can try to get through this together? Or not together. If that’s what you have to say.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait, what?!”
“I know you’ve been having doubts about us, Courtney. I heard you talking to my mom last night. Hell, even if I hadn’t, it’s been obvious from how you’ve been acting.”
She skipped right past my admission of eavesdropping. “What? What did I say last night?”
Was she feigning ignorance? “About how you don’t know if I’m marriage material. However you put it.”
“Drew! Oh my god, no! I never… that’s not it at all! You thought…” Then, of all things, she hauled off and slapped me, flat-palmed, on my bare chest. It stung more than a little. “Drew, I didn’t mean you’re not marriage material! I said, if I remember right, that I didn’t know if we were headed that direction!”
“Same thing though, right?”
“What? You think I meant I don’t want to marry you? Drew, master, sweetheart, I meant that I didn’t know if you’d have me!”
It was my turn to look shocked. “Have you? Courtney, you’re the woman of my dreams. And I mean that very literally. You are my fantasy made flesh. I have never – could never – love a woman like I do you. Why would you think I wouldn’t want you?”
“Because of what you said, you doofus!” Still, my praise brought a bit of a smile back to that angelic face. “Do you not remember when we talked about this over the summer?”
“I think I do. I remember was telling you I wanted you to be able to keep your options open in case you ever broke the spell.”
“What? Is that what you thought you said?”
“Isn’t it…?”
“You made it sound like if I ever snapped out of it, you’d want to leave me in the very next minute! ‘Oh hey, thanks for a good time, Court, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!’ You. That was you. That was so you!”
“Oh shit, no!” I pulled her down on top of me, and kissed her until she couldn’t believe such a thing would ever be true, until she would never again think I could mean such a thing, until we were laughing and crying in relief that it had ever been thought of at all.
“Is that why you’ve been so… off, lately?” I asked her some time later.
She sniffled. “You noticed that, huh.”
I swept a lingering tear off of her cheek. “Of course I noticed.”
“I… well, no, that’s not quite…” Her lips pursed, twisted. “Sort of,” she said at last.
“Sort of? What’s sort of?”
“Well, um, I was going to…” She mumbled something so fast and so quiet that it sounded like another language.
“Come again?”
“I said, I was going to propose,” she said, only slightly more clearly.
My eyes bulged in shock. “You were what?!” But then I remembered myself, and my arms were around her and there were more kisses, more reassurances. I never tired of the feel of this woman in my arms.
She rolled over on top of me, looking right into my eyes. “I had this whole big plan, and I was going to do it at the office party – you know, make it a whole big thing, have everybody talking about you and your hot new trophy fiancée at the water cooler. But I got nervous, and I didn’t want it to be some kind of calculated career boost thing. Or I don’t know, at least that’s the excuse I made.
“Anyway, so then I happened to draw your name for the gift exchange, and I know we weren’t supposed to do significant others, but I thought a proposal in front of your friends would be really sweet and memorable, but then Connie was just stinkeyeing me and Erika, and you said something about what a cute couple she and Rich are and I was like we’ll never be a couple like that, and I didn’t want to embarrass you or pressure you into it if you wanted, like, a normal wife – or at least, one who wasn’t a sex slave with a sex slave, and…”
I eased her neck down and kissed her forehead. “Oh hon.”
“By the time last night rolled around I’d been torturing myself with it for weeks and you said on the drive over that you couldn’t imagine why Mike had ever settled down and I was like what if you never wanted to settle down, and… I got freaked out and I finally told myself I just had to ask, but then you were pretending to be asleep.”
I grimaced. “Who says I was pretending?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Drew. Come on. You have no idea how many hours I’ve laid here listening to you breathe while you sleep. I know what it sounds like, ya big faker. And I had this whole hot, elaborate plan for how I was gonna do it, too.”
“Oh man. Is it too late? Or have I lost you forever by being a fool?”
She rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t get me to do it if you begged.”
I gave her ass – that rolling, firm yet supple, heavenly ass – a little slap. “Courtney, do it.”
She grinned. My assertiveness never failed to delight her. No one enjoyed the power I had over her more than her. Not even me. Quite. “Yes, master. Gimme a sec to get ready, OK? No peeking. And, um, get dressed yourself. Nothing fancy – just what you were wearing earlier is fine.”
“I think Erika leaked all over it earlier when she sat down after you finished eating her out.”
“Well whatever, just find something.”
“Sure, sure. Don we now our gay apparel, eh?”
“I’m pretty sure the gay apparel portion of the evening took place earlier when Erika was wearing my cunt as a hat.”
“You’re so funny, darling.”
“Yeah, I’m hilarious. Now no. peeking.”
I gave her a moment to grab what she needed, opening my eyes only when I heard the bathroom door shut. I donned a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve tee I’d never gotten around to folding and sat back down on the end of the bed. She took longer than I would have expected. Not that I knew what to expect. Why proposing would require a change of outfit was already mysterious to me.
“All right, I’m coming out. Now, I had this other way I was gonna do it in front of your coworkers and your friends, but this is how I was gonna do it last night, with just the two of us. So you have to imagine you’re back there in your old room, OK?”
“Intriguing. Got it.”
“Good. Let me get in position, and… OK. You can look.”
The bathroom door swung open.
Courtney was someone else – someone familiar, from a sweet old memory. She was wearing skinny jeans rolled up just below the knee, along with a maroon t-shirt I hadn’t seen since last Thanksgiving. “Jackson High Vball” was printed across the chest, the letters distended by the swell of her breasts. (I really did need to ask her some other time where she’d found that shirt.) Courtney’s golden hair was up in a high ponytail, and her makeup was layered on a lot heavier than usual. Her pink, thickly glossed lips gleamed in the soft light, and she was clearly chewing gum.
She could have gone back in time and blended into my old school seamlessly. Heck, she might pass muster even now. Courtney had finished high school not a few years ago, but nobody would doubt this youthful vision of innocent sensuality was anything but the part she was playing.
“Hey there stranger,” she said, grinning on one side of her mouth. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Uh, yeah. I kind of live here, actually.” It was a roleplay, but she made me every bit as nervous and exhilarated as she would have way back then. It felt too real.
“Is Mike home?” she peered around, as if my brother might be hiding behind the nightstand.
The direction of her interest soured me instantly – as sour as I could be in front of the hottest girl in school standing in my bedroom doorway, at least. “No. I’m not sure where he is, but I know he’s not here.”
“Good. Mind if I…?”
Like that, my smile returned. “Sure. Come on in.”
Like we were still in my childhood home, like it had been thirteen days rather than thirteen months, she casually strolled in, looking around at the trappings of my room as if they might help her gauge my maturity, my suitability. She didn’t look satisfied by what she saw, but she didn’t look dissatisfied either. 
“You never called,” she said directly.
“I don’t have your number.”
“You didn’t ask me for it.”
“I, uh, guess I didn’t know we had anything to talk about.”
Courtney tossed a stray wisp of hair behind her ear as she settled down nearby on my bed. “I read that book you talked about,” she said. Book? My mind scrambled, but she supplied the answer. “Slaughterhouse V. With the Flamadingians, or whatever.”
“Tralfamadorians,” I corrected her. That’s right! Last time she’d been this character, she’d been looking at the book I’d loaned to my brother, and we’d talked about it. 
“Are you correcting me?” she snapped, every inch the entitled, hot, popular, busty, blonde teen queen.
“No! Just, um, trying to help you find the, uh, right word.” Holy shit, my voice almost broke.
“Drew? Relax, I’m just busting your chops.”
She laughed, and I joined her, awkwardly. “Oh. Yeah, I knew that.”
“You did, did you?”
“Well, no, but…” I saw this face, this body, every day, but suddenly it was overwhelming me like it hadn’t since our first date. Or since she’d debuted this character.
“You know, you’re not exactly smooth, are you.” I looked down, not responding, and she went on. “You’re not like Mike. Mike, he always knows what to say. Remembers to say the right compliments, notices my shoes, looks me in the eyes when he says them.”
I tried not to frown – and to keep from staring at those stretched-out letters on her chest. “Yeah, he’s the man, all right.”
“No, he’s a player, Drew. All that stuff I just said, it’s all an act, a bunch of bullshit to get into my panties. That’s it. That’s all he is.”
“Most girls don’t seem to mind.”
“Most girls are fucking idiots, Drew.”
“You’re not an idiot.” I was defending her before I could even register than she obviously hadn’t meant herself.
Courtney laughed at my gallantry. “See? That’s what I love about you. You don’t know what to say, what to around me. I mean, how many times did you see me without ever having the guts to even introduce yourself?”
Outside her little fantasy, I thought of the scores of times I’d seen her on the bus. Hell, she’d been the main reason I’d even taken the bus to begin with. “A lot.”
She scooted closer. I’d noticed her perfume when she’d sat down, but this close, it was almost overpowering, in that way girls of her age – her pretend age – often wore it. “Why not?”
I licked lips that were suddenly bone dry. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess because you’re… I mean, you’re so pretty. I bet you have guys hit on you all the time.”
She didn’t deny it. “But last time I was over, you spoke to me, and you didn’t hit on me at all. You talked to me about books, and you tried to make me feel better about the rest of the guys of the world.”
“That was different. You were just talking to me about books and my brother and stuff.”
“It didn’t feel different to me. It felt like you were just a guy who started talking to me. There I was, all caught up in the web of this player asswipe, and suddenly here’s this guy trying to be nice to me. And how’d that work out for ya?”
I smiled, both at the complexity of her improv metaphor and at my memory of the incredible sex we’d had in my brother’s bed that night. She’d actually downplayed her prowess, acting like a clumsy teenage girl who’d had even less sex than the real me. “It worked out pretty great.”
My girlfriend put her hand on my thigh. “It worked out great for me, too. I was starting to think all guys were a bunch of assholes, ready to give up and accept the hand I was dealt, and… there you were. Dealt me a new hand. Sure, I kind of threw myself at you in a weak moment, but you… you took me into your bed–”
“My brother’s bed, actually.”
“–and were the man to my woman. Do you even know how hard I came with you? I’ve never had that with anyone else. And then you go and not call, not text, and here I’m just waiting for you to ask me for another go. Wondering if I was just some random fling, or if you actually wanted to try to keep me around.”
“I… I’m sorry. I should’ve called. Asked you out.”
“Don’t be. Because now, here I am, asking you.”
Only she didn’t ask. She kissed me. Its own entreaty, in a way, but there was no chance of refusal in the face of such charisma. Like two horny teenagers, we were immediately throwing ourselves at one another, tearing off our own and the other’s clothes with equal relish. My god, those tits. It was like seeing them for the first time. Her perfect skin didn’t stop at her face, either. Her entire torso, then her thighs, face to feet, it was like she’d been airbrushed. 
“Tell me how you want me,” she panted.
“Like no other girl I’ve ever met!” I declared instantly, sincerely.
She giggled. “No, I meant, like, how do you want me?”
“Oh! Oh. Ride me?” I remembered suddenly how she’d warmed to my assertiveness last time – and somewhere deep inside, remembered a thousand other examples – and retried it. “Ride me. Ride me right this second and don’t you dare stop.”
Then she was climbing atop of me, naked and glorious, laughing in simple delight as I penetrated her for what seemed like only the second time. “Oh em f-ing GEE you feel so fucking huge inside me!” she moaned. “Remember, you can’t come in me, OK? Tell me when you’re getting close, and I’ll use my mouth. It’ll still be good, promise.”
I believed her,  grinning at the dim memory that her character was a teenage girl and not on the pill, and swore I’d give her forewarning. It made me feel like she’d been treasuring that evening, too, that it had been as special to her as it had been to me. Then she was wriggling those wide hips on me, groaning at the feel of my cock inside her. When I decided she was going slower than I wanted, a few slaps to her ass were like spurs to a horse, and suddenly she was off the the races.
“Oh fuck, did you just spank me? Holy fuck that was so much hotter than I thought it would be! No guy’s ever had the balls…” She squeezed her thighs around me. “Don’t you dare stop now, Drew! You fuck me, you fuck my steamy creamy cunt until my sore thighs can’t crawl out of this bed any more! Then you fuck me some more, understand? You’re gonna fuck me until I’m fucking bored of it, and…” she tensed, climaxing, her whole body twitching, tits wobbling like gelatinous earthquakes, “and I’m never going to get fucking bored of this!”
“You and me both,” I grunted, thrusting my hips up to meet her.
Normally, on a third bout in a single evening, it took me a good long while to come anywhere close to orgasm, even with women like Courtney and Erika in front of me. This scenario, however, was sapping my reserves faster than I might’ve liked, except for the implicit promise that we could do this again whenever we wanted.
“I’m getting close,” I said, willing myself not to go over the edge. Not that it would matter if I did, but we liked to keep our role play authentic. I didn’t want to knock the poor girl up, after all; never mind that the real Courtney had gotten an IUD long before we ever met.
She pouted – that pout almost finished me – but got off in the nick of time. She even hesitated before taking my cock, dripping from her pussy, into her mouth. This was an in-character affect if ever there was one; Courtney didn’t care in the least if I’d been inside her, or Erika, when she sucked me off. I thought it was a little hotter that way, honestly, and like so many things, I think my preference rubbed off on her. “Let me take care of you, OK?”
“Do it.”
It took seconds. She wasn’t even using her best technique, but the sight of her, the feel of her, the weight she had lifted from my heart… it was all too much. I came so hard I could almost hear it spat into the roof of her mouth. She squealed in surprise, but didn’t let up until she had me good and drained.
“You’re… you’re so… that was…” I attempted, chest heaving.
“What can I say? I like to suck on things.” She shrugged, giving a little giggle. “If you want, I can do it again later, when you’re ready.” She sucked my index finger into her mouth, wetly slurping up its length.
“I want.”
She moved on to the middle finger, tongue swirling around it. “And maybe again tomorrow?” 
“Then too.”
“How about if, maybe, we agree to do that again, whenever we want? Like, forever?” Then she moved onto the next finger, only… There was something in there. Something hard. What was that? Was that a…
A ring?
As my ring finger slipped out of her mouth, I saw there was a gold band around it, glistening with Courtney’s saliva. The woman herself was grinning ear to ear, pleased with herself beyond measure.
“Courtney…”
“I meant all of it, you know. You saved me, Drew. My life, before you… it was a dead-end, a one-way ticket to a place… you can’t imagine. I’m not even sure I can. And I threw myself at you, and instead of freaking out at finding the world’s sluttiest new girlfriend, you saw that I needed you, even if you couldn’t know why.”
She climbed back on top of me, clutching my hand between her breasts. “You took care of me in a way nobody else ever tried to. And you made me happy in a way nobody else ever has. You let me be someone nobody else would let me be. You make me come like nobody else ever could. You make me smile, on my lips and in my heart, like I’d never learned how.”
It was clearly a rehearsed speech, but it was no less moving for it. She went on. “I know you feel like there’s some part of me that wouldn’t want this. But you don’t see that I’m happier now, with you, and yes like this, than I ever even knew someone could be. I thought people who fell in love and went gaga over each other were stupid saps, because I didn’t think anyone could make me feel that way. But you do. God, do you. And I never want to lose you, not ever. You’re my best friend, my lover, my master, and my partner. If you say yes, then I’ll do everything I can to pay you back for what you do for me every single day.”
That idea, that somehow she was the one who owed me a debt of gratitude, was so backwards that even in the midst of her proposal, I almost argued the point. But she obviously felt exactly the same way. And maybe that’s how fairy tale love like ours was supposed to be, two people who made one another their best selves.
(Three people, if you count Erika. OK, so maybe we weren’t exactly the fairy tale.)
“Well?” she prompted when I didn’t respond right away.
“Yes! Of course, yes! You had me at ‘you make me come like no one else.’”
She laughed, and then we were kissing again, and laughing, and her tears of joy trickled down onto my chest. “How long did you have that ring in your mouth?” I asked after a while.
Courtney giggled. “I had it in my ponytail. I snagged it right after you came. I was surprised you couldn’t tell from how it made my voice sound.”
“I’m used to hearing you talk with a mouthful of cum.”
“Fair enough. I tell ya, the hard part was getting it on there with only my mouth. Erika let me practice on her all last week. By the way, we’ll probably have to resize it. I got it a little big so it’d slide on easier.”
“I like things a little big.” I gave one of her boobs a little squeeze.
“I like you,” she replied.
“I like you.”
“And I love you.”
“I love you, too. Always.”
She sighed, a sound of utter contentment. Though we were both exhausted, neither of us wanted the moment to end, and I held my new fiancée against me as we talked about our joint future long into the night.