LOTS OF TOYS AND GOODIES
DALTON
We have sex two more times in somewhat rapid succession before succumbing to our depleted energy levels. We’ve been lying on the bed, her head on my chest and our legs tangled together, for about the last half hour. It’s taken us that long just to catch our breath and find our balance again.
“I know you saw I got you gifts but I also got you stocking stuffers,” she says out of nowhere, her finger trailing over my chest.
“Well, I brought them for you, so I guess we’re even,” I say.
“I did see the stockings hanging out there. I just didn’t know if we were actually filling them,” she says.
I may have sequestered her for the holiday season, but that doesn’t mean I want her to miss out on anything. Though, I’ll admit, some of her gifts are normal, and some are on the kinky side. I figured I would give her those particular gifts if she responded well to the conversation. And thank fuck she did because this would have been a very different experience entirely. God, I don’t even want to think about that.
Lacy doesn’t say anything more, but I know she’s smiling. I can almost feel it radiating even though I can’t even see her face.
I stroke her hair, gently twirling a strand between my fingers and tucking it back behind her ear, repeating the motion. I’m contemplating. I’m contemplating hard.
The conversation about my sexual tastes was only one of two chats I wanted to have with her. Now that it’s done and has gone over well, I’m hesitant to rock the boat with the other. Because while sexual tension met with rejection is hard, it’s not impossible to get over or move past. Even if it is Lacy.
But telling her I have real, deep feelings for her? Well, there’s no telling how that will go. A person can want to fuck you without loving you. That’s not just a trait in men either. What if she doesn’t want more? Sexual tension over the years doesn’t mean there’s anything behind it.
Even when we weren’t together on holidays, I always kept an eye on her through social media and by occasionally asking her brother how she was. Sometimes I could slip it by him casually, and other times, he’d call me out. For the record, he’s not disapproving of the two of us dating. I cleared the air about that long ago.
The point is, I’ve kept tabs. And she’s the best. The most amazing. Two years ago, she organized a toy drive at her work right before Christmas. She’d caught wind of some sort of statistic about how many local kids don’t receive anything Christmas morning, and it had really upset her. She marched into her company’s human resources department and laid out an entire plan, offering to take ownership of it. The CEO was so impressed, he promised to personally match whatever she raised. I don’t think he expected her to come out with about ten grand worth of toys a couple of weeks later, but he kept his promise. The year before that, she refused gifts for her birthday and insisted we donate anything that was going to be spent on her to the local animal shelter. And she wouldn’t let us just send money. She called the shelter, asked them for a wish list, and made us all go buy items and then we delivered them all. The manager of the shelter cried.
And the most amazing part? She’s humble. She doesn’t brag about any of it, even though she has every right. When the animal shelter said they were going to tell the media, she refused to be named. She still wanted the shelter to get a news headline in hope it would help them, but she insisted on staying anonymous.
I’ve probably got no less than fifty stories and anecdotes about her of the same nature. She has such a good heart—real wholesome, salt of the earth. She’s brilliant, has a great sense of humor, and she’s brave. I don’t know what else I could ask for in a person. Spending so much time with her over the years, how could I not fall for her?
“What time is it?” she asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
I fumble for my cell phone, which fell to the floor earlier, and pull it up against my chest. “Just past one.”
“Oh my god,” she says. “It’s Christmas morning.”
“I guess it is.” I laugh.
“What should we do? Should we try to sleep a little? Should we unwrap gifts now?”
“What would you like to do?”
“Gifts!” she exclaims, jumping up.
Her exquisite tits bounce as she hops out of bed, and I’m momentarily rendered unable to move. She looks back at me, as if knowing what I’m thinking, her eyes following my gaze to her chest.
“You can have them later,” she says with a laugh.
I finally stand, pulling on my boxer briefs and stretching my arms overhead. “Don’t forget your socks.”
Lacy looks at me, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Socks?” she asks.
“The Christmas socks, of course.”
Understanding dawns on her face as she begins to nod, disappearing from the room. I make a mental note to bring her bags in here later so she doesn’t have to keep going to the other bedroom. Maybe I should’ve put them in here from the start, but that felt a little more than presumptuous.
I find a comfortable pair of pants and a sweater, and then pull on my own bright green Christmas socks before shuffling out into the hallway and grabbing all her gifts from the utility closet there.
I arrange my gifts for her under the tree and turn to the kitchen since she’s still stacking things. I figure it’s not right to open gifts without hot chocolate.
“Done,” she exclaims.
“Perfect timing.” I round the corner with two mugs of hot chocolate, one of which is overflowing with marshmallows.
We sit on the floor next to the tree, the now full stockings pulled from the mantel and lying there as well.
Despite there being only two of us, there are more than a dozen gifts under the tree, and I honestly don’t know how that happened.
“You go first,” she says, shoving a gift into my lap with her free hand. It’s wrapped in a rich forest green paper with a simple gold ribbon around it.
I take to carefully unwrapping it after setting the mugs down. The box inside is plain, giving away nothing. I’m struck with my feels as soon as I get it open. Inside is a blanket. But not just any blanket. It’s a patchwork quilt, and it looks almost exactly like the one my mother made for me when I was a kid.
“I remembered the picture you showed me once. You said you were about five and you were on the couch, wrapped up in your favorite blanket. I remember you looked very sad when you said you lost it. I know it’s not the same or even a replica but?—”
“It’s perfect,” I say, cutting her off. “It’s really perfect, Lacy.”
A sheepish smile spreads across her face, like she’s embarrassed to be so thoughtful.
My mother died about two months before I lost the blanket and it devastated me. It was one of the last things I had of her. I don’t talk about her a lot, but over the years, Lacy and her family have pulled bits out of me. Perhaps I should talk about her more, now that it doesn’t hurt as much.
My dad did a good job raising me, or he tried to. He just wasn’t ever the same after she died. There’s something about a mother—her gentleness, care, and devotion. Maybe that’s why I spent a lot of time with Lacy’s family. Their mother is a wonderful woman. I don’t know if it was just her nature or because she knew I didn’t have a mom, but I always felt like she hugged me just a little more tightly than other friends who came around.
“Here,” I say, choking back more emotion than I’d prepared myself for. I press a gift into her hands, noting that my wrapping job isn’t as neatly done as hers but still not half-bad. I chose cheerful red paper with tiny snowflakes all over it and silver and white ribbons.
I watch her hands move over the paper, ripping it open to reveal a similarly plain box. As she opens the flaps, I hold my breath and watch her facial expressions.
Curiosity melts into what looks like pure joy as she pulls out the book inside. It’s not just any book, and it’s not one you can find in stores.
“What is this?” she asks.
I inhale a deep breath, knowing this is it. This is the moment that’s going to spell it out. The way I feel about her. “I took all the photos of us over the years and had them printed into a book. There are also notes and even a photo of the napkin we signed when we placed the bet. Remember how we scrawled down the rules? It’s in there.”
She flips through a few pages, stopping at various photos of the two of us on vacation, at parties, during Christmases past. Pretty much any photo of the two of us I could find is in there. Even the one her brother took when I was holding her hair back as she threw up. It was a classic “drank too much” night, ending in her doubled over in the bushes outside her parents’ house. She’d briefly paused her retching to give the camera a thumbs-up as I held her hair back, also giving a thumbs-up.
“Wow,” she says. “This is amazing. It must’ve taken forever to find all these.”
It had taken forever.
“No, it wasn’t too bad,” I lie. What am I supposed to say? That I harassed her brother and parents for the past three months, making them send me all the photos they could find? No, I wasn’t going to say that. No way.
“I love it,” she says.
We exchange the rest of our gifts in the same manner, flipping back and forth between us until they’re all gone. Some are less sentimental or more silly. Others, like the kinky ones, are thankfully met with excitement. One of her gifts to me was just a very large box of fruit snacks, my favorite thing growing up. And while it’s not intended to be serious, there’s something about a person taking the time to know you like that—what your favorite snacks are, how you take your coffee, or the fact that I know she likes no less than twenty marshmallows in her hot chocolate. It means something. At least to me.
I just don’t know what it means to her.