17 comments/ 49282 views/ 41 favorites Five Christmases By: TheWorldSpins (Author's note: This is my entry for the Christmas 2013 Contest. It builds up over time, slowly at first, as David and Lauren's relationship changes over five Christmases. Please enjoy and don't forget to vote! --Theworldspins) ***December 11, 2000: Pfeiffer and Melinda's Christmas Bash*** I wasn't completely wasted when I first met Lauren, but the alcohol was definitely flowing, the party was in full swing, and I was in a state of stupid, inebriated bliss. In part, my mood was due to the booze, of course, but it was also just the feeling of release at the end of what had been a long, dark semester. I had lost a girlfriend, sprained an ankle, survived my parents' divorce, and almost not survived a chemistry class I needed if I was ever going to graduate. It felt good to let loose, before I headed home for the holidays. Getting drunk and spending one last night with friends for a while wasn't my only goal that night, though. I was looking forward to my chance to talk to a girl I'd had my eyes on for a month or two, a friend of friend of a friend. I'd met her at Halloween, dressed as an angel. I might have poked a hole in my costume just looking at her—she was that hot. I learned she was best friends with my friend Pete Pfeiffer's new girlfriend of the month, some chick named Melinda. This girl, who had the utterly terrible name Charleen, was just my type: petite, blonde, fair-skinned, and hot in a "girl next door" kind of way. She was kind of shy, but I knew that this party would be my chance to get her talking. I had no expectations of actually getting lucky tonight, but I thought that I could at least plant the seeds for next semester. I was a junior in college, and I was starting to think about finding a girl for longer than a month or two. It wasn't too hard to find freshmen girls to spend the night with, but as college girls got older, they started thinking a bit more seriously about a relationship, at least back then. I hear today that college is some kind of non-stop fuckfest, which is terrifying to the thirty-three year old version of me now, with two young daughters. I was playing it cool, talking to everyone but her, but keeping an eye out, waiting for my moment. This might sound like I was being a complete chicken, afraid to make a move, but I can assure you I had a really good plan, only I can't remember it many years later. What happened next, though, changed everything. If I would have walked up to Charleen, broken the ice, chatted her up, then asked her for her number, maybe we'd have met when we got back to campus. Maybe we'd hook up, fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after, and I'd have little blonde kids and a little blonde wife who adored me and never caused me heartache. This isn't that kind of story, though. "What do you think?" I turned around to see a striking girl—more a woman than a girl—standing behind me, holding a hideously blue drink and leaning in over my shoulder. "What?" I responded. "I say she looks sweet, but take her back to your room and she's got a huge bush. I mean, like, '70s style," she said, slurring her words a bit. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback. I didn't even know this girl, and here she was talking about pubic hair before even introducing herself. I might have been shocked, but I was always quick on my feet, even when I was tipsy. "No way," I told the girl. "You see how lily-white she is? I'm guessing German ancestry. She's shaved it into a swastika." That got a laugh out of the drunk girl. I took a second to look her up and down, as sneakily as I could. She was hot—not my usual type at all, but hot, with a great laugh. I wanted to hear it again. "Any more theories on the pubic coiffure of our friends here?" I asked her. "Coiffure? You've got to be an English major," she replied. "You know it's French, right?" I said drily, before cracking a smile so as not to seem like a dick. "Excuse me," she said in an exaggerated voice. "I liked your guess better than mine. Make another." "Oh, it wasn't a guess," I told her, winking. "So you've fucked her, then!" she responded laughing. "Here I thought you were just slinking around like a little puppy dog in love." The first thing that crossed my mind was that she was wrong. I was not slinking around; I had talked to everyone, told a few stories, drank more than a few drinks. She would have to have paid pretty close attention to me to even notice how I was watching Charleen. "No, you've got it all wrong," I told her. "I've never slept with her. I've just seen her pubes—everyone's here, actually. It's a tradition at Pfeiffer's parties. Hope you're well groomed for show-and-tell later." She laughed again. Good. "Can't groom what you don't have!" she said, arching her eyebrows. I must have blushed, because she looked really proud of herself. She was upping the ante since I had handled her first attempt at shocking the prude. I wasn't going to let her win this game we were playing. "Too bad," I said. "There's a prize for fullest bush—year's worth of hedge trimming from Pfeiffer's dad's landscaping business." I thought blue cocktail might shoot out her nose she laughed so hard. "Ohhh, gross! Way to kill the mood, dipshit," she said jokingly, punching me in the arm. So there was a mood, I thought. Interesting. "Hey, so, I'm David. David Mauer," I said to her, expecting her to finally introduce herself. She rolled her eyes. "Lame. I'm totally not having sex with you tonight, so can we just go back to the actually fun conversation we were having?" This time, I really was shocked. "Hey, I never said anything about—" "Sorry," she interrupted. "It's just...let's not ruin things with awkward get-to-know-you shit. So...you're David, David Mauer. I'm Lauren, Lauren Connors. Now be funny again, funny man." "So is that it, huh? I'm some kind of dancing monkey here to amuse you?" I said, pretending to be hurt. "Not at all. A dancing monkey would be really, really entertaining," she replied, her tone again lighthearted. "You're just...OK." "Well I don't want to be funny. I want to know how you knew I was into Charleen," I told her. Lauren smiled. She had a great smile, broad and toothy without looking silly. Again, she wasn't my "type": her skin was olive, a little Mediterranean, and her lips were thinner than I normally liked. When she smiled, her dark eyes wrinkled at the corners and her cheek bones drew upwards just a bit. She did have the button nose that I like so much, and the long, shiny hair, though hers was dark brown, almost black. "Probably from the way you eye-fucked her while you were sipping that girly drink," she replied wryly. "I hope your eyes used protection." "It's a gin and tonic!" I exclaimed, defending myself. "I know, right? You might as well be wearing a dress," she replied, trying to get my goat again. "Sorry, we can't all be drinking—is that Windex?" I said, gesturing to her electric blue concoction. She shrugged her shoulders exaggeratedly and flung her hands out a bit, almost sloshing some of the toxic drink out onto the carpet. "Hello: girl drink—girl. I can get away with it," she said. "There's a world of difference between a G & T and a Smurfette," I responded. "But she was the most special and beautiful of all the Smurfs," she said. "Oh, and G & T? Really? Sorry, busy man—can't be bothered to say the whole word? Must've saved yourself, like, what? A whole five seconds?" I couldn't get a read on this girl. I was used to going after my kind of girl: shy, looking for a boyfriend, pretty but not too overtly sexy. I knew how to coax them out of their shell, how to make them feel comfortable with me, and then how to close the deal. I did not know what to do with Lauren, though. I couldn't tell if she wanted to fuck me or just make fun of me for an hour. "So," I asked her, "how do you know Pfeiffer? I haven't seen you around before." Again with the eye roll. "Not this again. Did I hurt your feelings or something?" "No, not at all. I'm just trying to bore the shit out of you with small talk," I told her. "I'm trying to get laid tonight, and you've already said we aren't going to have sex. I can't chat with you all night, you know." I figured that would either piss her off or make her laugh. If it was the former, then, so what? There's another girl who doesn't want to sleep with me in the world. Otherwise, she'd laugh, and then we're back on track. Neither one happened. "Sometimes I lie," she told me. "I'm Charleen's roommate. You're not fucking her tonight—she's got a boyfriend, and she's, like, super-faithful." Shit! The night seemed like a waste. "You lie sometimes? How can I tell the difference?" I asked her. "When I'm scared or nervous, I lie. Sometimes. But I always tell the truth when it matters," she said. It was the most serious thing she had said all night. It also gave me an idea. "OK, you don't seem scared or nervous right now. Were you watching me tonight? Eye-fucking or otherwise?" Lauren squirmed a bit. She wasn't as comfortable as I was when the tables were turned. "How about eye-foreplay? Or maybe eye-third base?" she said, biting her lower lip. Up until that point, I had been really stupid. I was trying to think of clever things to say, trying to clear my head from a fog of alcohol, and trying not to screw things up. All that trying kept me from seeing what was going on with her. Her cheeks were flushed, just a little, and her chest was heaving. She was even constantly brushing her hair back behind her ears, sub-consciously probably. She was in to me. It sounds weird, but that was the first time I really checked her out totally. I mean, she had—has—a great face, but her body was outstanding. Lauren is tall, almost 5'9", with incredible long legs. The thing that stands out to me about her body, though, and this was, for the last time, totally not my normal type of girl, is that she's thin, but kind of wide, in an hourglass-figure kind of way. She had wide hips and really generous breasts, which made her waist look smaller than it was. That's what I meant when I called her a woman earlier: she had this look that was both sexy and strong at the same time. I remember thinking, before we had even touched, that she was going to be a hellcat in the sack, and my premonition proved true. I'm sure some more repartee followed. Somehow we ended up back at my place, but I honestly can't tell you how that happened. What I remember—what I'll never forget—was what happened next. "This is your lucky night," she told me. "I've heard Charleen fuck. I'm much better." Lauren had the most wicked smile on her face. There was a moment of pause as our eyes met, then a whirlwind of clothes, discarded in piles around the floor. We were a little drunk, a lot horny, and both really young, which meant we didn't need an hour of foreplay. We dove right at each other, mouth on mouth, as our bodies intermingled. I remember sliding into Lauren's cunt with relative ease she was so wet, and there was little thought of slowly building things. She was fucking me as hard as I was fucking her, and my torch for shy, innocent blondes was extinguished. This was a woman riding my cock, finding all the right spots to make herself cum all over me, and I loved it. A stream of nasty, dirty talk issued from that sexy mouth, and I distinctly remember learning a few choice phrases that night to add to my vocabulary. I could feel her pussy clench tight, almost forcing me out as she came. Her body was covered in goose bumps, and she collapsed on top of me, as I came so hard that I was half-afraid that I'd rupture the condom. "Wow," she said, "I was really good, right?" I smiled. "I'll fuck Charleen tomorrow and let you know how you rate," I said teasingly. "Asshole!" she cried, punching my arm. We stared into each others' eyes. I wanted to speak, to say what I hoped we were both thinking, but couldn't. Lauren could. "So, not to be that girl, but, can I stay the night?" she asked, trying and failing to disguise the earnest desire she felt. "It can be your Christmas present to me." "Stay the night? I might never let you go," I said, not realizing the meaning in my words. I went to Pfeiffer's party trying to get a petite, demure, kittenish blonde's phone number. I ended up fucking a tall, foul-mouthed, sexually explosive brunette on the first night we met. We were married two years later, and two years after that I was the father of two beautiful girls, Polly and Jenny. ***December 20, 2007: Sax, Kelly, and Schmidt Christmas Party *** 2007 was shit. Total shit. I had gotten the life you're supposed to want. I had the job, the wife, the family. I loved two out of three, but the job was killing me. As it turned out, I hated the corporate world, and no amount of money would change that. I wanted so badly to go back to school, maybe even go into teaching. Lauren, on the other hand, loved the lifestyle. She was working in management consulting for the financial industry, going to expensive dinners and conferences, getting the dream house. I couldn't just follow my heart and quit; I had responsibilities. Moreover, I wasn't sure how our relationship would work if Lauren became our primary earner while I was in school. Maybe the job started to take over the good parts of my life. I was supposed to be "lucky" for landing a gig at a ratings agency with an English degree. I didn't feel lucky. I felt like part of a horrible machine of corruption and greed. You can probably all tell from the date what I mean: I was on the ground floor of the greatest rip-off in human history, powerless to change anything. To clear my mind and stay sane, I started writing on the side, short stories at first. It helped to get some of the darkness inside me out into the open. That was another reason I started spending more and more time alone, away from my jet-setting wife. That year, I had begged Lauren to let me skip out on her office Christmas party. I couldn't stand the kind of smarmy assholes that I knew would be there at my own company. Why would I want to do it twice? I was shocked at how easy she gave in to my requests, telling me it would be fine if I just stayed home with the girls. The night of Lauren's company party, though, I started to feel guilty. I was letting my own unhappiness get in the way of being a good husband. Once I got a sitter, I drove over to her office to surprise her. When I got into the lobby of her building, I gave my name to the security guard. His look is seared into my memory. It was a mixture of pity, disgust, and a strange kind of complicity, as if we already shared a secret. Something wrong was in the air. Thinking back, I realize how important that look was. On a normal day, I walk into that party, loudly announcing my presence, talking to Lauren's co-workers, and asking around for her. Without that warning look, she sees me coming a mile away, and maybe I never find out. But that's not what happened. Instead I slinked in quietly, lingering at the edge of the party. I saw it, and if I could see it, I knew others could see it too, at least a few: Frank Kelly's arm around my wife's back, rubbing between her shoulders. He was Lauren's boss and a huge prick. I had even met his own wife, a silicone-enhanced trophy wife bimbo from Boca Raton. The whole arm thing might have seemed innocent, and hell, I might have shrugged it off myself if it wasn't for that look. I knew that something more was going on. I followed them discreetly, brushing off any feeble attempts at small talk from the office drones that I already knew. The way they were talking, the way she was laughing: something was going on. I knew it. No proof, of course, but still: I could feel it. I must have looked dejected when I came out of the elevator in the lobby only fifteen minutes after going up. The security guard looked up at me, his face knowing and maybe even sad. He held his left hand up, pointing to an empty ring finger. "Women ain't no damn good, man," he said. "You better off without 'em." "Does everyone know?" I asked him. Hell, at that point, I didn't know. All I had was a couple of laughs, glances, and an arm around her. And that look. "Naw, man, ain't like that. We just see everything down here," he said, gesturing to the bank of screens, connected no doubt to the security cameras throughout the building. I went home. People at the party had seen me. Eventually, word would get back to Lauren. I wasn't sure what would happen then. I wasn't even home when I got her text message. "Did you come by SKS?" I waited until I pulled in the driveway to answer her. "Yes," I responded. "TTYL." She must have blown through every red light on the way home. She flung the door open, then tried to compose herself, as if she hadn't frantically raced home. Her breath was heaving, causing her tits to jiggle in the low-cut dress she'd worn. She looked absolutely stunning, only it wasn't for me. "David, what's going on?" she said, almost out of breath. "Why didn't you stay and look for me?" I was sitting on the couch, my blood boiling in my veins. I wanted to explode, but held my rage in check. I had sent the sitter home, and our daughters were sleeping upstairs. The last thing I wanted was to wake them to see what was about to happen. "Are you scared?" I asked her. "What? What do you mean?" she asked, her voice quavering. For my part, I wanted to speak as low and monotone as possible. I thought it would keep me from screaming. "Lauren. Are you scared right now?" She was catching her breath and clearly wanted to try to play off her haste in coming home, as well as her own growing panic. "I wasn't, but now you're scaring me a little," she said uneasily. "Are you nervous?" "David, what's going on? Why are you being like this?" "I want to know if you're scared or nervous because I'm going to ask you a question and I want to know if you're going to fucking lie to me or not," I said. I could tell that reminding her of what she said to me the night we met hurt her. Suddenly, her tense expression melted into a kind of recognition of what was happening. I could tell she wanted to cry but was desperately clinging to the façade of not knowing. "David, please, don't," she begged. "Don't what?" I asked. "Don't do this. Don't ask me." That made me angry. It was like she was mad at me for hurting her. Now I knew what I had to do. "Are you fucking Frank Kelly?" I asked, matter-of-factly. Once the question was asked, it couldn't be unasked. If I had horribly misunderstood things, we'd have a fight. She'd get mad. I'd eat shit from her for weeks. But if I was right? "I'll stop." For some reason, I thought about Charleen, the girl from the party seven years ago, right then. I wondered where she was. Was she married? Did she fuck her fifty-year-old boss behind her husband's back? "Don't bother," I told her. "I hope you two have a lot of fun together." Then Lauren made a terrible mistake. I guess she misunderstood what I meant. Maybe we'd already grown apart. Maybe she never really understood me. I knew that everything between us was really over when she spoke. "Really?" she asked hopefully. "I love you so much, David. I should have known you would be cool with opening things up." I learned something about myself that moment, something that many people will never know. I learned that, deep down, I am a good person. Most people probably think that, deep down, they're basically good and decent, but you'll never know until you're tested. I didn't strangle Lauren right that moment. That makes me a fucking saint. Instead, I stood up, and walked over to her. She started to backpedal, and I stopped my advance. I honestly wasn't trying to intimidate her. I just didn't want to say what I was about to say too loudly. Five Christmases "I am not some piece of shit that you can fuck around on. I'm not your bitch, Lauren. At least...I'm not anymore. Good bye." Finally, she got it, and immediately burst into tears. She reached for me as I went for the door and grabbed my arm. I spun around violently, and she flinched hard, dropping my arm and throwing her own hands up in front of her face, defending against an assault that wasn't going to come. I don't remember any coherent sentences coming from her, just a string of words. "It's not...I...no! David, I'm stupid. Please!" I didn't have any reason to respond to her, but looking around at all the Christmas decorations in the house, a weird kind of gallows humor overtook me. "Merry Christmas, Lauren. You've given me a gift I'll never forget." ***December 23, 2011: My House, Party of Two*** For about two years, there were three things on my desk and three things only. There was a bottle of Evan Williams, periodically replaced. I had quit my job and was living off savings and a few meager royalties for pieces in new fiction anthologies. I couldn't afford the good stuff. There was an old Dell laptop, whose battery no longer worked. It was too old to run really up-to-date programs, but perfectly capable of word processing, which was all I needed. It allowed me to write. There was my grandfather's old revolver. At first, I hardly believed it worked, until I took it out to the woods outside my father's new house down south and shot it into the ground. It sat on my desk, a bullet in the chamber, waiting for the day I might need it. Everyday, I woke up and went for a run. I came home, took a shower, and ate a meal in my sparse bachelor's apartment. Then I went to my desk and made a decision. What kind of day was I going to have? At first, I chose the bottle more often than not. When that got old, I started choosing the computer. Unlike the romantic images of the alcoholic writer, you can't really get much work done in a haze of bourbon. When I wrote, I was almost always stone sober. I never chose the gun. That's because of my girls. I saw Polly and Jenny every weekend. By then, they had turned seven and had become walking, talking, actual people. Don't get me wrong, I loved them as babies and toddlers, but being with them now was so much better. Even though they were a lot alike, being twins, they had their own unique quirks and personalities. I never thought I would be a good father—mine wasn't, Lauren's either. But I loved those girls, and they became my reason for living. So I wrote. I was dead broke when my agent called me and told me Knopfler Publishing wanted my book. It's not what you might think: I had tried to write "serious fiction." I wanted to be Wallace or Pynchon. Instead, I ended up a second-rate, male Stephanie Meyers. Yeah, that's right: I write schlocky romance books about magic for fifteen-year-old girls. It's called "Young Adult Literature," though it turns out that writing a book for teens actually means that a lot of adults, especially women, will also read and love it. My series was about a world where certain people could remember things from their past lives. The heroine, who, let's be honest, is pretty much just me in a dress, is a teen girl who begins to remember things from the past that she couldn't have otherwise known. The protagonist in this kind of book is always a teen girl, and she always has some kind of power. My girl found out about her past lives and uses the knowledge to find her true love and save the world. It was utterly clichéd, but I can't lie: I loved the recognition and just knowing that people liked something I had done. A lot of writers don't even get read at all. This was something at least, and it made me a decent living too. I still saw Lauren of course, when I picked up the girls, but other than that, I tried my best to steer clear of her after the divorce. We had a pattern. When she had a boyfriend, all she could talk about in front of me was how wonderful her life was. Then when they broke up, all she could talk about with me was how horrible her life was without me and how we should get the family back together. Then a new guy came along, and all that vanished. Things weren't just stuck in the same rut, though. In fact, as my life improved, hers declined. It started when she lost that management consulting job back in'08, a truly shitty time to lose a job. It turns out that prick Frank Kelly fired her to placate his wife when she found out about the affair. The next year, Lauren sold the house, which she could never afford without me anyway. Then came the parade of short-term relationships and instability for my daughters, punctuated by desperate, transparent attempts to get back together with me that fell flat. After a while, I guess she gave up. We talked less and less, and by 2011, she just seemed...defeated. She stopped pretending everything was OK around me. I'm sure it ate her up inside to see my writing, which she had no doubt viewed as some kind of silly, useless hobby, turn into something big. I had hated the corporate world, and I managed to escape it and do something I loved. She had lost the life she loved. It couldn't have helped that I was also meeting a steady stream of women. I promised myself I would never fall in love again, but that didn't stop me from sleeping with more beautiful women than I had ever thought possible. I don't want to exaggerate—I was never Hugh Hefner, just a nerd who writes books. What I learned, though, was that those books spoke to women better than I could ever do on my own. Sometimes, it seemed like women fell for me almost before meeting me. It was never hard to find pussy, and that was all I really wanted. I made a point of never having any one woman stick around for too long—my favorite were the graduate students at the nearby university, since they were usually there for only a short period of time and weren't looking for a long term thing. I didn't have an advanced degree or anything, but they even had me conduct a few creative writing workshops, which was also a great way to meet hot women. I was spending the night with one of my favorites at the time, a petite blonde, who was sweet and a little submissive in bed named Melanie. I had gone back to my type, and Melanie let me pretty much have my way with her, within reason. It was the 23rd, Christmas Eve Eve, and we were cuddled up on the couch drinking wine. I knew I was going to have to avoid her tomorrow and the next day, since both of those were actual holidays. I even considered not fucking her tonight in order to get rid of her more easily. I couldn't have her around for the next two days, since the holidays were too intimate and too family-oriented. I didn't want her thinking we were getting serious, and I had resolved to break it off with her after the first of the year. It seemed shitty, after all, to dump someone right before Christmas. I remember her putting her wine glass down and leaning in to kiss me. With her, it was always easy to move from kissing to getting her to give me head. All it took was to place my hand on the top of her head, and she immediately got the picture. That night was no different. I loved to watch a blonde bounce her head up and down on my crotch, and Melanie had learned, through my skillful and patient teaching, exactly how to suck my cock right. "Do you want to...you know?" she asked tentatively. I had no idea what she was talking about. There were a lot of things I wanted to do to her, so I decided to just tell her what I wanted. She never gave me much trouble. "Yes, I do want to fuck you later. First, just suck my cock," I told her firmly. She blushed with shame. I loved playing the worldly, rough-edged writer to such an innocent girl. I got off, admittedly, on being emotionally withholding and demanding with someone like her. I guess I can be a prick some times too. She went back to work, taking as much of my cock as she could into her warm, wet mouth. Even now, she wasn't the best cocksucker I'd been with for certain, but she was one of the easiest and most compliant. I was considering pulling out to cum all over her pretty face when we were both startled by a knock on the door. I could tell she wanted to stop, but I was almost there. I held her in place, and right when the second series of knocks came, so did I, spurting a thick load into her mouth. I could feel her swallow around my cock, always a great feeling, before she pulled me hastily out of her mouth. Normally I like a good cleaning, but I couldn't hold it against her under the circumstances. Melanie got up from her knees and straightened her hair out. She looked at me confused, mouthing out "What do you want me to do?" I thought it was kind of cute at the time. She acted like a frightened teenager. She looked so adorable, slightly disheveled, her lips a little extra red from giving me head. Part of me wanted to keep her around longer. She was a lot of fun. "Go get yourself something to drink," I said out loud. "And you don't have to whisper." She scampered away into the kitchen, and I went to the door. Shit, this is the last thing I need, I thought. It was Lauren. Then I heard my daughters, bounding up from the car, their little matching pink bags bouncing around at their sides, screaming and giggling for their Daddy. Now I wasn't upset, just a little confused. "David, we need to talk," she said seriously. I had been distracted by Polly and Jenny, but now that I looked at Lauren, I could tell she had been crying. This might sound strange, but I've always had a weird thing for a woman who has just been crying. Who knows what kind of psychological damage that reveals in me? "I'm surprised to see you, Lauren. I don't get them until after the holidays," I said, a little annoyed. Lauren looked kind of terrible and kind of great at the same time. She was still in great shape, and despite gravity and two kids, the tits were still fantastic. Her eyes though, carried the weight of all disappointment in her life since I left her. She couldn't hide a kind of hollow, weary sadness. "Can we come in?" she asked. "Of course..." I answered. At that moment, Melanie came back into the living room from the kitchen, holding a glass of water. She locked eyes with Lauren. "...but I'm not alone. Can this wait?" Lauren seemed ashamed. I could tell she was surprised; more than anything, she didn't want anyone to see her look like this, eyes red and rimmed with dry tears. She looked like she wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear. Three years ago, I would have been happy to draw this out, torture her a little. Now, though, I didn't care. I wanted to know why she had come and what the girls thought was happening, and I wasn't going to figure this out with Melanie here. If anything, Lauren's arrival gave me a perfect excuse to kick Melanie out and avoid her for Christmas. I introduced her to Lauren and explained to her that I needed to sort some things out about custody, but that I would call her when I was free again. I knew in that moment that our next date would be the break-up. Of course, Lauren and I couldn't jump straight into a deep conversation. The girls were just happy to see their Daddy, and I was happy to see them. They had just turned seven, and more and more they began to look like tiny copies of Lauren. I couldn't see myself in them much at all, only her, and more than once I had considered the possibility that they weren't really mine. The only proof I had for the fact that I was their biological father was Lauren's word, which wasn't worth a damn thing, and a picture of my mother's mother as a girl, who looked a lot like them too. Once they had tired themselves out, we put them to bed in their room upstairs. I showed Lauren to the bar in the kitchen, and she sat down. I offered her a drink, and she accepted. "David, Paul and I broke up," she said. "The car saleman?" I asked. "Don't play dumb, I know you know everything I do from those girls. That's how I know all about your parade of sluts," she said, with evident bitterness. That made me angry. Who the fuck was she to criticize me? "Look, this is a mistake. I don't want to fucking talk to you, anyway. You can pick them up in a few days when you get your shit together," I said, barely disguising my disgust for her. I expected Lauren, even in her current state, to buck up against me and fire back. That was the woman I had always known. Only, this time she just kind of fell apart. I'd never really seen her cry like that. "David, I need you to take the girls," she said, between sobbing. "Fine," I said, a little less angry. "When are you picking them up?" "No, I mean, I think they should live with you. I don't know how long," she said, her sadness and disappointment unmistakable. I was floored. This wasn't like her. "Why?" I asked, not meaning to sound like I was against the idea, though I probably did. "Because I'm a fucking waitress. Because I live in a rat trap apartment. Because they want to be here, in your beautiful house, with their beautiful father, and not their bitch mother who cries all the time. Is that reason enough?" Lauren's whole body was shaking. She downed the glass of wine I handed her practically in one sip. It worried me; I hoped she didn't drink like this in front of the girls. She could tell what I was thinking immediately, though. "I'm not a drunk," she said defensively. "You just have no idea how hard this decision was." She had a point. I poured her another glass of wine. This time, she sipped it slowly, as if to say that she was alright, or at least not on the verge of a total meltdown. We talked logistics. I could tell she was happily surprised that I was going along with the whole idea. That, in turn, surprised me: did she not know how much I loved the girls? Did she think I held her actions against them? We talked for a few minutes, and when she had calmed down enough, she rose from her chair to leave. "I guess I couldn't have hoped for you to be any better than this," she said. "Please tell them I love them, and that I will see them soon." That was something we had passed over: what was she doing now? When would she come back to visit? Those seemed like important things to know. "Where are you going now?" I asked. She looked ashamed. "Home to pack. I'm broke, so I'm moving back to Michigan. With mom." That was like hearing a person say they were volunteering to go back to prison. I was stunned. Lauren had been on the executive track. She relished that stuff. Now she tells me she's a failed waitress going to live with her mother. She turned, defeated, and trudged towards the door. I thought of the girls. No matter what kind of shit Lauren had put me through, she was their mom, and they were losing her. That would be their Christmas memory: the day their mom went away. "Wait!" I called out to her. She stopped without turning around. I could see her shoulders trembling. "Sit down. Please." She slowly turned towards me. Having to stick around after admitting something like that must have been hard on her. "David, I didn't tell you that to jerk you around. I know you don't want me back, and I can see why after tonight. She's...pretty. Just leave me alone. You win, OK?" I can't explain why I reacted to her self-pity with anger. It just happened that way. "Oh, I win? What did I win, Lauren? A broken family? A broken heart? Years of misery? Now you tell me I'm the big winner here." I suddenly felt like shit and prayed that the girls hadn't woken up. I expected Lauren to storm out, but she walked over to me and put her arms around me. Her body was warm, and in the midst of emotional turmoil, I have to admit that I felt a strange thrill to feel her breasts pressed against me again after all these years. "I'm sorry," she said into my shoulder. "I just...I can't be a fucking loser forever. Polly and Jenny need me to get my shit together. I wouldn't do this if it wasn't for them." I held her tightly. My head was spinning. I took a deep breath, until suddenly my mind cleared. I knew what to do. "I'm sorry for yelling at you," I told her, pulling us apart just enough to look into her deep brown eyes, rimmed with tears but still so beautiful. "The girls need their mother. You're not a loser. You just need...help." She looked up at me, her lips pursed ever so slightly. I could still feel her chest heave. My hands had crept down her waist to her hips, without me even realizing it. I felt a sudden urge to kiss her. This was taking a turn I didn't expect. "I...I can get you a job. Over at Hawthorne. In the Financial Aid Office. Pays well, not too hard, and you've got all the experience in the world. You can stay in town and see the girls whenever you want." She didn't look as happy as I thought she would. "I can't get a letter from SKS. They despise me over there. I'll never get the job," she said with disappointment. We broke off our embrace, and I watched Lauren's body shiver, as if she was returning to normal from a state of intense emotion and—was it arousal? "Doesn't matter. I know a...guy there," I reassured her. I didn't tell her that the person I knew in the administration over at Hawthorne wasn't a guy at all, but instead a tight little brunette, who was a big fan of both my books and my cock. Lauren didn't need to hear that right now. That's when I saw the smile come back, for the first time in years. It only lasted a moment before vanishing, but it reminded me of how she looked when we first met. It seemed like a lifetime ago. "David, I...It's just been...hard. I feel so alone," she said. "Lauren, you've got the girls, and, shit, you've got me. Whether I like it or not," I told her. Almost without thinking, I leaned down to kiss her cheek. She turned her head and our lips met. It was only a second before we pulled away, but after that, something was in the air. "When I said I felt alone, that wasn't all. David, I miss you. I miss the things you can do to me." I didn't know how to feel: flattered or worried. "It would...I mean, if you could find a way to..." she stammered. I didn't mean to sound impatient, but I told her to spit it out—what was the point of fucking around? "David, I want you to fuck me. I'm not asking for the ring back. I'm not going to move in. I just need something in my life that makes me feel good. I know you don't want me anymore—" I didn't let her continue. Something had come over me, and everything happened like it had when we first met, a blur of clothes and bodies, a hasty, long-delayed coupling. This time, maturity and Melanie's talented mouth meant that I lasted a lot longer, of course. We were fucking in the middle of my living room, wildly irresponsibly as any parent can attest, going at each other like we were kids again. My hands roamed across her body, retracing the paths I'd followed so many times before. Everything was familiar but strange, like returning home after a long journey. There had been no thought or planning, just a desperate, hopeless desire within me to fuck her senseless, matched in intensity by the woman who had once been mine. Somewhere in the middle of things, though, when I ought to have been focused on the moment, on the lust and passion going on between us, I pulled away in my mind. I know she could tell; she tried her best to bring me back, to make me be present with her there in the moment, but I just couldn't. I thought about my desk. I thought about my grandfather's gun. I thought about Frank Kelly. I even thought about Charleen. "Please, David, I'm sorry," Lauren said, almost out of breath from our furious fucking. "Come back to me. Be here with me tonight." Five Christmases With that, I snapped back into place. I don't know if Lauren came or not—I was too distracted—but I certainly did, filling her with whatever cum I had left after Melanie. I slumped on to the floor, exhausted, as she lay on the sofa. "Where did you go?" she asked fearfully. "Somewhere I don't want to go again," I replied. "David," she said, getting up to begin the search for her clothes. "Yeah?" "We can do this whenever you want." I didn't say anything. "David?" "Yeah?" "Please want to." Lauren looked like she might cry. I got up, too, collecting my own stuff. I didn't know what I was going to say. I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to do this again. Maybe I wanted her to hurt, to suffer. Maybe I wanted to tell her I loved her and that she'd never be sad again. Maybe I wanted to crawl into a hole and die, never to think of any of this again. "I do want to. But I need something from you," I said, my brain working on auto-pilot. "Anything," she said, pausing in her fruitless search for her panties to approach me again. "The girls are going to be at your place a lot still. When they were here, I never brought any of my 'parade of sluts' around." Lauren cringed when she heard her own words back at her. "I don't want a bunch of random fucking men around my daughters," I continued. "So if this is going to work, keep them out of the apartment, OK?" She looked weirdly relieved. I was sure she'd argue over me dictating the terms of her love life. "I won't see anyone else. I promise," she said seriously. "That's not what I meant," I told her. "I just meant do it at their—" "I know what you meant," she interrupted. "And I know what I meant. No one but you, as long you let this continue." I felt worried all of a sudden. "The girls can't know. And I'm not breaking up with Melanie, either," I protested. Of course, that last part was a lie. I had every intention of dumping her, especially now. Lauren looked unhappy, but she swallowed any objections. "I hope she's OK with it. Don't do to her what I did to you. That's not who you are," she told me. Lauren finally found her underwear and decided against trying to put it back on. "Hey," I said. "Let me keep those." She smiled and handed them to me. "Here's to the start of a beautiful friendship..." she said before heading out the door. ***December 24, 2012: Patterson Hills Mall, Santa's Workshop*** Believe me, it's strange to 'casually' date your ex-wife. It's even stranger to casually date other women at the same time. I managed to keep the whole arrangement from the women I went out with, but I shortened my relationship lifespan with them even more than before, most down to just one night stands. On the other hand, as far as I could tell, Lauren wasn't seeing anybody else. I had issued that warning never expecting it to stick, but to my surprise, she totally followed through. She was always there for the girls, and for me, whenever I needed (or wanted) her. After a few months, I got comfortable with the arrangement and started making little requests: I told her to shave her pussy, wear some slutty lingerie, watch porn with me. It was all pretty basic stuff, but fun. In fact, being with Lauren was starting to become the highlight of my week. I started to sour on all the sweetness from my usual type of girl. Lauren had gotten her sense of humor back. There was something about having a good, steady job and a comfortable social life that brought her out of the downward spiral she had been in the past few years. Now, she could be wickedly funny and a great sparring partner. I let her read my drafts even, once she had caught up on the two already published books. I think she secretly liked them, though she'd rather die than admit it. She just had an edge that I found exciting to be around. It had drawn me to her before, and it was drawing me to her again. This time, though, I wouldn't let myself go there. We fucked; we never made love. She never stayed over, and the girls were never told about mommy and daddy's nighttime fun. I wasn't just going to fall back into a relationship with Lauren. Things went on like that for most of the year. When I had a "girlfriend," which was a couple of times that year, Lauren backed off, even though I could tell that after a while she was getting really pissy. To her credit, she kept it to herself mostly. As soon as the new girlfriend was out of the picture, Lauren jumped on my cock like the last chopper out of Saigon. The sex was urgent, frantic, even animalistic. After September, I decided never to bother with a girlfriend: one night stands were fine, but I didn't want to go through the motions of a relationship when I could be fucking Lauren savagely, whenever I wanted to. To add to the strangeness, she basically turned into super-mom. The girls were never happier, and we started to be able to take them places together, the four of us. They were only eight, and I was afraid they wouldn't understand what was happening, but they seemed so happy to get to be with both of us together that I didn't have the heart to stop it. By day, Lauren was a reliable employee, the perfect mom, and not a bad friend. By night, she was an insatiable, cock hungry slut, for me and me alone. She was in mom-mode that day, right before Christmas, when things changed for us again. We were in line at the mall, waiting with the girls to take their picture with Santa. They were right on the cusp of being too old for this in my view; I suspected they both harbored serious suspicions about the feasibility of Santa's toy production and distribution system, but we all played along because it was fun and it wasn't hurting anyone. Lauren had mastered the art of looking totally appropriate as a mom while still showing me how hot she was. Completely breaking our normal pattern, she reached over to hold my hand. I thought about pulling it away, but I didn't. I let her hold it, and for a second, it was like we were back together. "I have a present for you," she said in a low, subtly seductive voice. "I've got one for you too," I replied. "You got me a necklace," she said. I gave her a smirk. She was right. "I didn't peek—Polly blurted it out. You shouldn't have gotten her to help you wrap it," she said. I shrugged my shoulders. "Wrapping presents was your job," I said, trying not to sound bitter. "That's just it—I...I need to talk to you before I give you your present. The girls are in line for a while. Walk with me for a sec." I wasn't sure where Lauren was going with all this, but I was curious. I agreed, and we moved away from the crowd. "I need you to ask me all the things you've held off from asking me for this past year," she said, with a serious tone. "Here?" I asked with irritation. "It might be safer to do it in public," she said. I hesitated. Why was she trying to ruin all this? This was working for me: the girls were happy, I was happy, my cock was happy. What was the point of trying to bring up the past? "I don't..." I wasn't sure what to say. Lauren spoke up. "You don't want to blow this thing up when we've just barely put it all back together. I get it. I don't either. But—who was the last woman you saw for more than two weeks?" She only waited for a second for an answer, before continuing. "Exactly. You're not replacing me, but you're not letting me back in either. Understand me here: I'm not judging you. You don't owe me anything. You can sleep with all the women you want, David. I just...I have to tell you the truth here. It kills me. I want you so bad, and I have to share you." I took a deep breath. I wasn't angry, or nervous, or afraid. I just wanted, more than anything, to say things exactly how I felt them, without the wrong words distorting my meaning. "Lauren, you broke my heart. You know that. But you also...you just stepped all over my pride. I've thought it all: I wasn't good enough in bed, I wasn't man enough, you never loved me, you name it. I like you. I like spending time with you. The sex is phenomenal. But every time I feel myself getting closer to you, to the way we were, I remember how you looked so happy when you thought I was going to..." My breathing started to get heavy. It was flooding back over me now. My voice went into the low whisper of rage that only parents can do. "...you...you thought you could just fuck him, and I'd—what?—be there for you when you got home? It felt like you were cutting my balls off." Lauren looked dejected, but she gathered herself. It seemed like she was trying as hard as I was to say just the right words, and do so without causing a blowout in the middle of the mall. "When I worked there, I thought I was hot shit. I thought I was going to rule the world, and when Frank Kelly and all his cronies took me in, I thought I was on top. I started acting just like them, and I loved it. And when Frank came on to me, I thought, 'Hey, this is how the game's played.' I thought I could get away with everything, and nobody would get hurt. I was wrong." I had been fully prepared for a weepy apology, but not for this. Lauren continued. "I hurt you. I hurt the girls. I hurt myself. I've been in nothing but shitty relationships since you left—since I drove you away. I thought you were doing fine, great even. It's fucked but, I felt better knowing your life was good without me to ruin it. I wasn't jealous of your success, really. I was happy for you. You deserve it." I saw a tear in the corner of her eyes, subtle but still there. Neither of us could focus on anyone else around but each other and the girls, winding their way up the line to make it to Santa. Looking at them made it easier. "I've been paying for that mistake for five years now. If you think I should pay longer, I will. But...if you love me even one bit, you'd know how much I hurt. I love you so much, David, but I can't love someone forever who still hates me. I'm sorry." I knew I had to say something, but my mind had evaporated. I let my body make up for my lack of words, pulling Lauren in tightly to my chest. "I don't hate you. I just can't go through that again with you. I feel trapped." I knew what she would say, or at least I thought I did, but I still had to ask her, one more time. "They're mine. For certain?" She looked sad. We both looked over at them, now first in line. They were so beautiful, so alike and yet so different. "Polly and Jenny are your daughters, in every sense of the word. I wouldn't lie to you about that. Is that what you think of me?" "I'm sorry," I told her. "I just...needed to hear it again." Lauren held on to me, before she looked up. "After the girls go to sleep tonight, go downstairs to the office. Wait till midnight. Don't come down earlier than that. I'll let myself in with the spare key. Then I'll give you your present." I tried to speak, to ask what was going to happen then, but she leaned in to kiss me. This wasn't something that we did when we weren't having sex. At first, I simply let her kiss me, until I began to kiss her back, softly. I couldn't let things go too far—this was Santa's Workshop after all, and I saw the girls bounding towards us. "Mommy, daddy, I'm going to get everything I want," Jenny squealed. She had just finished issuing Santa her list of demands. "Me too!" Polly always followed after her sister. "Daddy is too," Lauren said. "Daddy is too." We hung around as a family all day, driving to see Christmas lights and cooking a roasted duck together. Around 9:00, Lauren left as she always did. I put the girls down with a reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and warned them not to get up in the night, or else they might scare off Santa and the reindeer. I went to my room and felt my heart racing. For some reason, I just knew that Lauren's Christmas present was going to be...important. Waiting three hours, without going downstairs to peek, was hard. I realized that I felt like a kid again, waiting as the hours ticked by excruciatingly until I could go downstairs for my present. I heard Lauren come in around 11:30. I got up to check on the girls, who were sound asleep, but I didn't dare go downstairs before it was time. I heard her enter my roomy downstairs office and close the door. Then I didn't hear anything more. Finally it was time. I crept down the stairs in my pajamas. The door to the office was closed, and there didn't seem to be much light showing under the door. Slowly, I turned the knob and peeled open the door to reveal my present. It was worth the wait. The candles, placed throughout the room, cast an alluring light on Lauren's smooth, bare thighs. She was kneeling on the floor, on her knees, her legs spread apart. She had spread a soft blanket beneath her, and I could see the muscles in her legs tense from holding the position, though my eyes were soon drawn to the unbelievably sexy red lace panties Lauren was wearing. The panties matched the basque she wore above, perfectly balanced between classy and raunchy. The lace scalloping at her bust emphasized her luscious, full tits, pressed together just enough to make an inviting display of cleavage. Her long dark hair was silky and straight and hung down onto her shoulders, while her cheeks were rouged just enough to draw attention to her gorgeous eyes. Her lips were ever so slightly open, her face somewhere between a smile and a breath. She held her arms behind her back, which only served to push her chest out more. I looked over to her left, at one of my writing tables. On it, I saw an array that made my mouth water. Lauren had brought a paddle, a bottle of lube, a blindfold, her digital camera, and even a ball gag. I suddenly realized I had no idea what was about to happen. "David, I'm your present. I'm not in control any more now, you are. Take pictures, whatever you want." I reached down for the digital camera, my cock quickly becoming engorged. This was an image I wanted to savor, so I snapped off a few shots of Lauren in her lingerie. "You can unwrap me whenever you want," she said. Her voice was less seductive than urgent. I think she wanted this as much as I did. I slowly undid the basque from behind, letting my fingers trail across her bare breasts as they fell free from their confines. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes. I began to toy with her nipple, before growing more insistent, tweaking and pinching it. She made soft little moans. I switched from the left to the right. Once the top was discarded into a heap in the corner of the room, Lauren fell onto her hands and knees, her ass raised invitingly towards my gaze. Something was different, though. I peeled back her panties, and stared into the most erotic thing I had ever seen. Glistening in the candlelight, a bright green jewel sparkled between the mounds of her perfectly formed ass. I could see the slick sheen around her asshole from where she had lubed herself generously in preparation for inserting the thick, jeweled butt plug. My cock strained almost painfully in my pants. "Nobody has ever fucked my ass," she said, in a low, almost serious voice, "but I want you to do it. I want you to stuff your fat fucking cock into my ass and make me scream into that gag, and then I want you to fuck me so hard and so deep that I can taste it in my mouth when you cum." That was the dirtiest thing I had ever heard; shit, that was pretty much the dirtiest thing I could even imagine. "I only have one rule," she continued. "Don't hold anything back. This is for you, so hurt me if you want to hurt me, fuck me as hard or as soft as you want, and, no matter what, do not think. Fuck." It was hard not to think, especially since the first thing I wanted to think about was what to do with all that crazy shit on the table. I've never been much into any kind of BDSM stuff, and honestly, just watching someone get whipped with a flogger would probably cause me to wince in pain. That said, the blindfold seemed hot and the ball gag gave me all kinds of ideas. Most of all, I knew that Lauren wanted me to take charge from here on out. That was the whole idea of her "present." "Take off my pants," I said, trying my best to steel my voice and take on the whole dominant role. Lauren complied instantly, popping up to her knees, licking her lips, and staring into my eyes as she unbuttoned my pants. She pulled both them and my boxers off simultaneously. My fully erect cock sprang up, pointing towards the ceiling, as soon as she freed it. She leaned in, to take me into her mouth, before I stopped her. "Tell me why you want it," I said sternly. "I want it so much," she said breathily. "Not how much! Why?" I said, my voice rising to a pitch of anger I didn't expect from myself. There was still obviously a lot of rage in me, rage I thought I was over. Lauren was trembling, almost imperceptibly. "Because there's been a hole in me ever since you took it away. Because I was put on this earth to satisfy it. Because I love it, and I love you." Holding the back of her head, I pressed forward, my cock aimed directly at her parted lips. Before I entered her mouth, I could feel her tongue stretching out, anxious to make contact with my warm, throbbing member. "No more talking," I said, as she moaned softly around my dick in her mouth. I didn't plan on doing this for very long, but Lauren's talented tongue and mouth made me think otherwise. I was pistoning my cock in and out of her mouth when I had a thought—yeah, I know, I wasn't supposed to be doing that. "Get up on the table, on your stomach," I ordered, certain of Lauren's complete submission to my every desire. I slid most of the toys over to the side, pausing to grab the blindfold and the camera. Once she was on the table, I placed the blindfold over her eyes. "Hold your ankles, and don't let go." She did as she was told. Her full breasts, pressed against the desk, kept her head up some, though once I had a free hand, I used it to hold head her upwards. My cock found its way back into the warm and wet confines of her mouth, and soon I was thrusting hard into her, gagging her as I speared into her throat. Lauren was struggling to take my cock, and a flash of remorse and guilt almost made me stop. What kept me going was knowing that, just this once at least, what I wanted and what she wanted were the same. She had practically begged me not to hold back, and, as strange as it is to say, I fucked her face hard as a way of telling her that I was truly enjoying the gift she had given me. The video I took, of my cock furiously sawing in and out of Lauren's mouth, was shaky and frenetic, a perfect reflection of the experience itself. I wasn't just a shitty cameraman because of the motion: I was also distracted by that jewel. It drew my eye to Lauren's ass, tempting me with the pleasures I knew were to come. I felt a sudden urge to paddle her ass red. This time, I didn't even think about holding back. "Can't you take that whole cock, slut?" I snarled, before swatting her ass with the paddle she'd brought. It wasn't really me, I thought, who said that. Lauren redoubled her efforts, and I slowed down on fucking her face to let her take my cock deeper. She really was trying to get me all the way down her throat, even if she couldn't do it yet. I was almost dazed, overcome by pleasure, anger, lust, and something that I only faintly remembered. It was love. "Suck my fucking cock. I want to see it in your throat," I said, this time with less apparent rage. I intermittently spanked Lauren's ass as she struggled once more to inhale my tool. I was beginning to feel that familiar feeling, as my balls started to tighten and my toes curled. It was at that moment that I finally broke through, slipping the head of my dick into her throat. Five Christmases Everything then was a blur, as if my vision had gone white. I made a mute, indecipherable sound of ecstasy as I unloaded my pent-up nut straight into Lauren's throat. She spasmed involuntarily, and the sensation on my cock was heaven. I tossed the paddle to the floor and held her head in place, my cock slipping from her throat into her mouth. I kept cumming and cumming, filling up her mouth with semen. She kept it inside, and it took a moment for my mind to return to me: she was waiting for my next order. "Get off that desk, but don't you spill a fucking drop." I could tell her legs and arms were sore from holding the position I'd put her in. "Show it to me," I said, having just caught my breath. Lauren tilted her head back so as to not lose any of my precious fluid, and opened her mouth. Damn, I thought, I guess I hadn't cum for a few days. I could hardly believe how full her mouth was. With her mouth open, I could see a single, thick string of cum connect her two front teeth to the pool of creamy jizz around her tongue. "Beg me to let you swallow it," I said. "pwea wet me swawa yah cum," she said, with genuine longing. "Swallow it all, honey," I said, stroking her hair. "Swallow your present from me." Just as I hadn't meant to get rough with her before, now I realized I had called her "honey" like we were still married. It had been years since I had said that to anyone. This whole experience was as confusing emotionally as it was exhilarating physically. Thankfully, watching Lauren swallow a mouthful of my own special sauce helped to clarify my priorities. "Do you need some time?" she asked, obviously referring to the state of my cock. "Maybe a few minutes," I said. "Until then, it's your turn." Lauren shook her head. "No, this is all about you. I don't even need to cum, unless you want me to," she said. "Lay on your fucking back slut," I said, this time playfully smiling at her. "That pussy belongs to me tonight. And put your gag on." It was like all of Lauren's anxiety and fear melted, leaving only the thrill that came from the anticipation of pleasure. I shucked my remaining clothing and moved between her legs, my warm breath signaling the imminent approach of the tongue she knew so well. I had eaten Lauren's pussy plenty since we'd started fucking on the side like this, but something seemed totally different now. In retrospect, I think that Lauren expected me to dive right into fucking her ass, as if I just wanted to mark something off a list of things I'd never done. The way that I drew things out, giving her pleasure to match my own, let her know that, despite the savage way I'd fucked her face, there was something more, something deeper in my feelings for her. She must have been shocked when she felt my tongue probe her most intimate of places. Unable to speak, she merely moaned. I was licking the tight ring of muscle hugging that jeweled plug, and evidently the sensation my tongue was causing was both new and breathtaking. "That's right: no talking, slut. Just moaning..." With that, I went back to her pussy, lapping at her wet slit with my tongue, while my index finger danced across the very top of her clit. I knew exactly how to get Lauren off, but this wasn't it. This was just to build her up, not to let her cum so quickly. "When I fuck your ass," I told her, in between licks and kisses to her exquisite pussy, "you're going to cum hard. If you cum, I'll know you still love me, for real this time." Even if Lauren could speak, it would have been hard to hear with her thighs clutched around my ears. I licked from the base of the plug, up her pussy, to her clit. Then I sucked it in, softly but insistently, flicking it with my tongue and humming ever so slightly. She was once more on the verge of cumming when I backed off. Her breathing was heavy and her legs seemed to be in constant, jerking motion, so desperate was she for release. Lauren knew better than to beg for it, though. Tonight, I was in control. Gingerly, I reached down to the plug. Grasping it on both sides, I slowly pulled it out, thrilling to watch as the wide part spread Lauren's already pink asshole open for me. My cock had already sprung back to life, and I grabbed the bottle of lube to prepare Lauren for her first anal fuck. She started to move so that I could fuck her from behind, expecting no doubt that I'd prefer that. "No, honey, I want to look into your eyes when I stick my cock inside you," I said. I grabbed a pillow from a nearby desk chair to place under Lauren's hips and did my best to lube her ass up with a finger. Once my cock was slick with lube, I knew it was time. "Remember," I told her. "I order you to cum." I took a deep breath when my cock made contact with Lauren's sphincter. I pressed, not too hard but still firm, and the head slipped inside. Thank god for that plug! I could tell from the contorted expressions on Lauren's face that my cock was stretching her in places she'd never felt before and that it was causing more pain than pleasure. I'd put a lot of pressure on her with my demand that she cum from getting her ass fucked, and I began to realize that it might not be possible for her. Slowly, but constantly, I fucked my cock deeper and deeper inside her, until finally I bottomed out. It was the most amazing sight, and I wished I could reach the camera to capture an image for any lonely nights when I wasn't buried balls deep in a gorgeous woman's ass. I held Lauren's legs in the air, one in each hand, as I drove my cock in and out of her, not nearly as forcefully as I would have fucked her pussy, but still enough to elicit a wince of pain every time I moved. "Is my cock too big for you?" I asked, partly out of concern and partly in search of an ego boost. I didn't want that to be a rhetorical question. I undid her gag, freeing her once more to speak. "No," she said, in between panting, "my ass...was made...for your cock." I thought she might be able to relax and enjoy it more if I stroked her clit some, but I wasn't prepared for what happened when I touched it, ever so slightly, with one of my fingers. Lauren erupted, as her orgasm crashed on her with an intensity that left me in awe. All the pain I'd had read upon her face was masking the gathering climax within her, and the pleasure flowed over her, like a dam bursting after a spring rain. Lauren's body shook uncontrollably, which contrasted strikingly with the serene look of calm on her face. Her dark eyes flashed up at me, and she had an expression of utter contentment and satisfaction. "I came for you," she said, as tears welled up in her eyes. "Cum inside me, please." It wouldn't be long. Lauren's ass was like a furnace, and the heat and tightness were taking me to places I'd never been. I locked eyes with her, and saw my wife staring back at me, the woman I'd fallen in love with so long ago. I didn't even have time to say anything before I began to cum, deep inside her ass, just as she'd asked me to. I felt the warm cum all over my cock and knew it was deep inside her, though I doubted I'd gotten it as far as she had asked for. In this position, I couldn't very well just collapse on top of her, but I had a strong urge to hold her. I pulled my cock, now sore, from her ass and laid down beside her. She wasn't squeamish at all about pulling me in close, and I kissed her passionately. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I mean about calling you a slut." "I am a slut," she said to me. "I've always been a slut. But if you want me, then I'd be your slut, and only your slut. Only I..." Lauren paused. I could tell she was afraid to say what she was going to say, afraid to ask me to be faithful to only her after our history. I didn't want to wait for her to ask. "You're all the slut I need, honey," I said, happy to see her smile and even laugh. "God," she said, "I've got to help you clean up in here before I go home." I knew she was thinking about the girls. We had always promised not to let them figure out we were fucking. We didn't want to confuse them with ideas that we were getting back together for real. Only I didn't want Lauren to go home, and I knew it was time for the girls to have their mom back full time. "Lauren, honey," I said, looking into her eyes. "You are home." ***December 6, 2013: An ordinary day at the Mauer Residence*** I didn't mean to snoop—honestly. All the blame falls on Polly, and her damn superpower. While Jenny's presence was usually announced by giggling, stomping, and singing, Polly could move around like a cat. She must have snuck into the room when Lauren was meeting with her friend. Thank god she didn't understand what they were talking about. It was on Friday when she let it slip. Lauren had left to run a few errands when Polly came up to me, wide-eyed. "Mommy's friend is pretty." I was glad she used the word "pretty." Things were great now, but I couldn't help but think how I'd react if Polly was speaking about a man. She'd only use the word "pretty" for a woman, though, so I felt safe. I didn't know who she was talking about, of course, but I sensed that I might be able to get more out of her. "Which friend, sweetheart? Does she have a new friend?" "The Barbie lady." I was puzzled. "Who is the Barbie lady, Polly?" "The lady with the yellow hair. She's little and has yellow hair and is very, very pretty, Daddy. Just like Barbie." I couldn't place who she was talking about, so I dropped it. She wasn't finished, though. "Mommy's silly." "How is Mommy silly, sweetheart?" Polly started to giggle, like only a nine-year-old can. "Mommy told the Barbie lady that she was going to be your Christmas present. People can't be presents, right daddy?" I couldn't contain myself. I knew exactly what my wife had in mind. I guess a threesome is a pretty good Christmas present. I looked over at the tiny box I'd wrapped for her. Inside was the wedding ring she'd given back after the divorce. It was time for her to wear it again. "Polly, this is very important," I told my daughter. "Do you know the Barbie lady's name?" Polly scrunched her forehead, in that cute way that little kids do when they're thinking. Then she smiled, a toothy, adorable grin. "Charleen!" Holy fuck. Merry Christmas to me...