Rick Lovett had no inkling, on arriving at Eastleigh Manor, of how comprehensively his marriage vows would be tested that night. How could he? His wife had accompanied him to the Christmas festivity, and even had she not been by his side, the moments he’d been tempted to stray since their wedding, some six years prior, numbered a paltry handful.

Granted such itches tended to crave scratching in December. There was something about the Yuletide season’s pagan aspects that rekindled Rick’s bachelor instincts. Tinsel-trimmed office girls cramming pubs and sidling all smiles past him, as work functions devolved into excess. Santa sirens shivering in the chilly dusk and pressing dangerously close, breath smoking, as they plied their club-night fliers. Such seasonal flirtations stabbed at his fidelity with an alarming keenness. He’d stroll away from such in April or September, loyalty undented. But Christmas teased him with that other kind of Clause–the get-out variety, where the added ‘e’ stood for EXCUSE TO MISBEHAVE–and shook his good intentions till they rattled.

Up till that festive Friday his resistance had been unimpeachable. Good thing you didn’t come here solo, his better self opined, as a perky fair-haired girl in a silver-spangled dress and reindeer antlers proffered champagne. He accepted, but Esther declined, citing a headache. “These look good, though.” She picked a savoury from the tray carried by reindeer-girl’s companion, a dark-haired nymph in a gently bobbing halo. Rick’s beloved was nibbling gingerly and catching errant pastry flakes, as both servers eyed her husband, smirking–at him and at each other. He registered the glances, logging their implications as cause for gratitude he hadn’t arrived unaccompanied.

It was to his consternation then that Esther chose the moment to abandon him. “I wonder has Melanie arrived yet,” she said above the social babble and Bing Crosby’s crooning, checking her phone for communications. “Nothing.” Esther glanced around, her gaze lighting on someone in the smartly dressed crowd. “There’s your friend Hugo, all on his lonesome. Let me check if he’s seen her…” And she was off on a mission.

Typical Esther–feeling poorly, but still wrangling Melanie’s tempestuous love-life, checking on the woman’s blind date, the one Rick had been enlisted to help set up. He quaffed his champagne, leaving his wife to her relationship brokering, while taking in the Manor’s Gilt Hall. Its Neoclassical grandeur was tricked out in white lights and festooned with seasonal greenery, the light of several hundred candles flickering on the guests’ animated faces. He had to hand it to Charles Grammaticus–the media boss knew how to deck his already impressive halls and could throw a good party for his network of employees. Doubtless he had the staff to clean up his rambling Berkshire pile the morning after, like nothing untoward had occurred in its many bedrooms. Yes, Rick knew all the stories.

He was contemplating the more salacious ones he’d heard from single colleagues on the paper, when Miss Antlers re-materialised glittering before him, tray outstretched. “Can I put some more fizz in your evening?” Her delicate features were lit up with a smile–winsome, but with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Or are you designated driver?” she added on his hesitation.

“No,” he said, succumbing to the sparkling glassful of temptation. “We got a taxi here.”

“Well then, drink up,” she said, her manner all dimply impudence. “It’s Christmas.” There it was again–this ostensibly religious festival as excuse for indulging one’s appetites.

“Thanks.” He raised his glass to her. “I will.”

The girl–Ellie, according to her name badge–ignored the conversation-ending cue. “Your wife deserted you already?” she ventured. So, this brazen little Bambi had noted his wedding band.

“No no, she’s over there playing matchmaker.” Rick nodded to where Esther was in conversation with a visibly disgruntled Hugo. “Or trying to.”

“She’s neglecting you? At a party? At this time of year?” Ellie pouted her disapproval. “You hear that, Amber?” Her long, ringleted ponytail flicked her shoulder as she turned to the friend hovering nearby with her trayful of canapes. The pretty brunette turned, lighting up like a beacon. “Mister Sexy has been abandoned by his other half,” Ellie informed her. “Oops,” she added, hand on mouth. “That’s Amber’s name for you. My bad.”

“Shush!” The haloed cutey shimmered with merriment. “Don’t tell him!”

“Too late,” Rick said, joining the laughter against his better judgement. “It’s fine,” he assured the blushing angel. “I’ve been called worse, so ‘Mister Sexy’ I’ll take. Anyway...” His eyes darted to where Esther was giving Hugo’s arm a farewell squeeze. “I’d better…”

“Wife alert?” Ellie said, knowingly. “Chat later, then… Mister S.”

“Rick,” he told them both, not sure why he was sharing. “And probably not. But thanks, and Merry Christmas.”

Only when walking away did he realise how fiercely his cock was bulging against his trouser fabric. He met Esther halfway on her return from the Hugo conflab, still wondering what the fuck had just happened. The conversation with the servers was reminiscent of encounters from his young and single era, some few years prior. Until this evening, he had viewed his wedding ring as a talisman warding off vampirically sexual overtures. Bang went that illusion.

“Well, that was a bust,” Esther was saying as Rick absorbed the shock.

“It was?”

“God, yes. Classic Mel. She got here a while back, gave Hugo fifteen minutes of her time and then did the ‘ladies’ room’ vanishing act.”

“She’s gone? You’re sure?”

Esther tapped on her phone’s faceplate and showed him Melanie’s text. THANX E – GAVE HIM A TRY, BUT NOT FOR ME. CALL ME SHALLOW. YOU & R HAVE A GOOD NIGHT x

“Wow. Okay. Poor old Hugo.”

“I love her like a sister,” Esther said, sliding the phone back into her purse. “But I swear, I don’t know why I bother.”

“Let Mel be Mel,” Rick advised her, regarding the friend Esther had recently labelled ‘an ongoing sexy disaster’. “She can conduct her turbulent love life no input required from you. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”

Esther frowned and squeezed his arm. “About that… I think maybe I should call it a night. Sorry, love, but I only pushed myself out the door due to the Mel thing. This headache isn’t budging short of a dark room and a cold compress. Will you be terribly mad if I bail?”

“No,” Rick said, unease welling within him. “In fact, let me call us both a taxi. I could use an early night, myself.” Grand though Charles’ parties undeniably were, there were only two pressing reasons Rick could think of to stay, and–separately or together–they scared the hell out of him.

Esther, however, touched a finger to his dress shirt. She was having none of it. “You got dressed to impress, and just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean everyone else shouldn’t enjoy it. Go schmooze and drink the boss-man’s free champagne and have fun.” He made to protest, but she shut him down. “Not another word. It’s your work do. And it’s Christmas. Enjoy yourself.”

She kissed him on the cheek and, with that, the woman to whom Rick had once plighted his troth took leave of the party.

It’s Christmas, he thought, alone with his empty champagne flute. Sweet fuck… Paranoia gripped him–a specifically boner-inducing kind, based off the instinctual sense that the waitresses would have watched Esther’s departure and with interest. Nor was this arrogance or delusion. Rick recalled his effect on women before meeting the one he married, and things hadn’t slidden in the fitness department. It was like those girls had seen through his respectably wed appearance and right into his past. The thought made him shudder. So did smiling glances from both the Yule temptations as they served elsewhere.

Fearing that they might home in again with fresh champagne and fresher innuendo, he cast about for distraction. His gaze settled on Matthew Ryan, political commentator on the Standard. The gay and comfortably partnered Ryan was one of those least likely to steer Rick in the direction of feminine delights, the kind with which their esteemed boss always seemed to garnish his festive events.

He stuck close to Ryan and, as best he could, shook off thoughts of the pair. From there he fell in with several of the Grammaticus news division’s crime correspondents, engaging with their off-duty tales and finally relaxing–till the tycoon’s Moët & Chandon was flowing past his lips once more. Before he realised, two hours had passed, and a good half-dozen glasses of bubbly had travelled south of his good intentions.

It was on his return from a brief restroom break that it happened. He was navigating his way past the Christmas tree that towered epically by the foyer’s immense stone staircase, hung to its highest branches with silver baubles and candy canes, when the hand lighted on his arm and coiled around his wrist. Ellie was staring up at him, her taut form trembling with some indeterminate passion, eyes full of appeal. “Rick,” she said, her recollection of his name drew an instantaneous response from his heart and his dick, “thank God. I need your help.” She was breathless and more dishevelled than before, drinks tray nowhere in sight, but reindeer antlers still attached. “We need your help.”

“You do?” Her fevered demeanour and quivering lip caught him doubly off-guard. “What’s happened?”

“It’s hard to explain. Amber–God, she’s so stupid, and I’m no better. Look, you need to see for yourself.” She was tugging him towards the stairs, and he was letting her do it.

“Is this a medical problem?”

“Kind of.”

“She’s taken something she shouldn’t?”

“It’s not that, but she’d get in trouble. We both would.”

“Look, I think you should find someone else…”

“Please, Rick, we need a friend.”

He was stumbling up the broad stairs with her, aware of her compact form beneath the snug-fitting cocktail dress, caution failing to apply the brakes, as intrigue and excitement took over. If the girls truly did require assistance, then surely it was flattering they thought him ‘friend’ and not ‘stranger’. The fact that Ellie’s rear strained invitingly against the spangly fabric that wrapped it was incidental. Such were his thoughts as they clattered over the return and hurried up a reverse flight of steps. Then Ellie led him skidding down a dimly lit hardwood corridor, past looming wall tapestries, until they were turning left into some darkened wing of the sprawling mansion far from the main hall’s hubbub.

“Where are we going?” he panted, the situation’s momentum preventing him from questioning his own actions.

“It’s right here.” She brought him sliding to a halt before a tall oak-panelled door. “Promise me you won’t judge.”

“I won’t.” Please, God–don’t let it be drug-related. I don’t need that. “Look, just show me.”

Ellie opened the heavy door and propelled him inside after her, pushing the entrance to. Rick stared through soft lighting at the source of the girl’s alarm. In fairness, it had fuck all to do with drugs.

The setting was a comfortably heated guest bedroom, ornate furnishings decorated with tasteful arrangements of ivy and mistletoe, the air scented with orange and clove. The room’s centrepiece was a fully canopied four-poster bed–queen-size, with one noteworthy occupant. Waitress Amber was kneeling atop its covers, peering backwards over her shoulder. She’d been stripped of her dress, her youthful body almost entirely on display. The black-silk stockings, suspenders, and garter belt threw her skin’s creamy tone into relief, while perfectly framing her tight, naked bottom. They also called attention, were any needed, to the traditionally striped candy cane that protruded, thick and sticky, from her asshole.

Rick froze, his vision zeroing in on the lewd intrusion and blotting out all else. He was dimly conscious of his jaw dropping, as his eyes–if not his brain–took in the pornographic spectacle. Santa Tell Me was playing, possibly from someone’s phone. Ariana Grande’s vocals provided a festive accompaniment to the sight of Amber’s uniquely decorated rear–with a cane purloined, apparently, from Eastleigh Manor’s giant Christmas tree.

Fuck. Rick wasn’t sure whether he’d spoken the word aloud, but the sentiment echoed through him from the epicentre of his surprised cock. “What the hell…” His open mouth fought to push out words. “What is that?”

“We were playing during our break,” Ellie explained, her tone embarrassed. “We both got licking on the cane, and then Amber thought this would be a fun idea, and I was fool enough to agree. And now look what’s happened.”

Rick continued to gawp, blindsided by an arousal he hadn’t sought and utterly perplexed to boot. “What has happened? What do you expect me to do?”

Amber stared back at him from her all-fours position, eyes glistening and sorrowful, halo drooping and askew. “It’s stuck, Mister Rick. I can’t get it out of my bottom.”

“I’m scared to try,” Ellie said, urging him from stasis towards the bed and her friend’s proffered rump. “I don’t want to call anyone–paramedics or whatever–and cause a scene at the party. Not after Charlie allowed us this room.” This last comment only semi-registered with Rick, so fixated was he on Amber’s ass and its unlikely problem. The candy pole was lodged firmly, that much was clear. To preclude any doubt in the matter Ellie grabbed the handle and gave it a tug, the sticky rod clinging to her friend’s stretched anus. Amber mewled piteously. “See?” Ellie exclaimed. “It’s in there tight. We should never have done it with no lube around.”

“Jesus,” Rick muttered in multiple kinds of frustration and wishing to the aforementioned Saviour that he’d not gone home earlier. “What the fuck were you both thinking?”

“It’s my fault,” Amber grieved. “I was just horny, and it wasn’t as thick as my boyfriend’s cock, so I though…”

“Christ Almighty,” Rick said, staring at Amber’s ass, impaled as it was with a hard candy fuckstick. “I don’t need to hear about your boyfriend’s cock.  It’s called traction. I can tell neither of you are Physics grads.”

“What if sucked on her clit and finger-fucked her?” Ellie suggested, like his inadvertent meanness hadn’t registered. “If I make her squirt, that’ll give us all the lube we need. Seriously, she’s a major squirter.”

“No!” Rick savagely crushed the idea. His cock was stiff enough as things stood. Squirting was the last thing he needed to envision. That said, Ellie’s plan wasn’t without its logic. “Spit on her,” he said, his desperation mounting.

“Do what?”

“Spit on her, Ellie. Spit on her asshole.” Shit. If Esther could see him. Hear him… “Oh,” he added, “and lose the damn antlers.”

“Right, yes.” Ellie unfastened the headpiece and climbed onto the bed, gripping her friend’s cheeks and pulling them apart to accommodate the glob of spit that departed her lips. Rick stared in tumescent disbelief as the saliva splattered and bubbled its way down Amber’s bum crack, slickening her tight-plugged hole.

“More,” Rick insisted, his erection strengthening at his own commanding tone. “Keep spitting. Lube her properly.”

Ellie complied, bending low and expectorating all around the embedded cane. Rick seized the handle, shunting and pulling to see if the striped stick would budge, fighting not to enjoy both view and sensation. Amber stifled sobs as her anal entrance was stretched and squeezed, but the invading object did not shift.

“Fuck,” Rick said, instantly regretting the word. “This isn’t cutting it. You’ll have to lick her.”

“What?”

“For fuck’s sake, Ellie,” he snapped, angry at having landed himself in this infernal situation, “This clearly isn’t your first rodeo. You got her into this mess, so help get her out of it. Stick your face in there and lick her damn asshole.”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” she said, falling to it with her tongue outstretched. Then she backed off and with no warning slid the straps of her dress from her shoulders and commenced stripping it off her body.

“What the…”

“Her ass is sticky,” Ellie explained, shoving the dress down below her own impressive rear and shimmying it off her legs before reaching behind to unhook her bra. “I don’t want to ruin clothes borrowed from Mr G.”

You borrowed your bra? Rick thought, as Ellie pinged that garment free and tossed it aside, revealing high, firm tits. But for her black silk panties, the removals left her in a similar state of undress to Amber’s.

“There,” she said. “All good.” With no further hesitation she dropped back to her task, gripping Amber’s cheeks and coiling her tongue around the base of the candy cane. “Cung on, Ick, we got iss,” she encouraged, looking at him with wide eyes as she lapped around Amber’s beleaguered bunghole. “We’ a team.”

It was no team that Rick had banked on joining, but try telling his cock that, as he placed a palm on Amber’s lower back and began waggling the cane. Ellie’s wet tongue slathered over his knuckles as he plied and twisted, Amber reacting with squeals and moans, her hands kneading the covers.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked, his dick tight against his trouser crotch as he worked the cane, Ellie lubing his efforts.

“No, Rick,” Amber responded, her voice constricted. “It’s okay–I like it.”

“That’s not my intention,” Rick said through gritted teeth, recalling a time when it would have been, as he probed a hot stranger’s rear. A pre-monogamous era of joyful promiscuity. He was seized with the urge to plunge the candy phallus deeper into Amber’s ass, but he sublimated it. Instead, he twisted tentatively with the aid of Ellie’s flickering wetness, until finally the gluey shaft moved independently.

“There it is,” he said, the blood banging in his ears. “Keep licking, Ellie.”

She redoubled her pink-tongued efforts. Rick pressed down on Amber’s back and withdrew the cane in one long, slow movement, like a recalcitrant champagne cork, from the girl’s clutching ass. She keened her response–“OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod”–until it popped free and her gobbling bumhole sprang tight again.

“Yes,” Rick pronounced, somewhere between relief and triumph.

“You did it!” Ellie was jubilant, her laughing face propped on her friend’s cheek.

Amber stared around, mouth agape and panting, to see the freshly extracted cane in her saviour’s fist. “Oh God,” she reiterated, all but weeping. “Rick– you’re my hero!” She pushed herself upright and shuffled around, halo wilting and buoyant breasts in full motion. Then she flung herself on Rick, wrapping slender arms around his neck and burying her face in his hair. He let the candy tumble from his grasp, so taken aback was he by her loving assault, so overcome with the sandalwood perfume of her jet-black hair. “Thank you, thank you–you gorgeous, sexy man,” she effused, snuggling her naked body tight to him. He placed a hand on her ribcage to try and disengage the girl, but she took it as reciprocated intimacy and held on tighter. Then Ellie was slithering arms around his waist from the other side and pressing her standing form close, lips pressed to his ear.

“Yes–thanks, sweetie. You were so calm, there. And commanding! You just took control. Fuck. You’re everything I hoped.”

“Look,” Rick croaked, bracing his will against the dual onslaught of sexiness, “I’m also very, very married.”

“We know,” Ellie said, palming his stomach through his white cotton shirt. “She’s lucky isn’t she, Amber?”

“So lucky,” Amber moaned, her lips and teeth finding Rick’s earlobe. “Such a lucky lady.”

“But she’s not here,” Ellie pointed out, plucking at his bowtie.

“That’s right,” Amber added, tugging his shirt free of his trousers. “She left you with us.”

“So you could come to our rescue.” Ellie’s deft fingers unknotted the bowtie and proceeded to unbutton their way down his chest.

“And now we want to show our gratitude.” Amber trailed lacquered nails over his bared midriff.

Rick gulped hard, his body paralysed with shameful anticipation. He attempted to retreat from Amber’s tantalising fingers, but Ellie guided him about, and somehow he ended up backed against a bedpost, with four smooth hands palming his exposed torso.

“You can’t make me do this,” Rick groaned, head languishing against the post.

“No,” Ellie concurred, trailing her tongue over a rigid nipple. “We can’t.”

“Not a chance,” Amber agreed, kissing his chest.

“You’d toss us aside like dolls.”

“Mmhmm, pretty little ragdolls.”

“You’d storm out that door.”

“We’d never see you again.”

“If you wanted to go.”

“If you really wanted to go.”

“I do,” Rick moaned, his chest under siege from hot mouths. He fought to conjure the image of his beloved wife. “I do want to go.”

“Maybe,” Ellie said, sliding her hand downwards to caress his trouser crotch. “But your cock wants to stay right here. Doesn’t it?”

All of Rick’s muscles seized under her touch.

“Your big, stiff, pussy-fucking cock wants to stay here with us, doesn’t it, Mister Sexy?”

The response, deep and guttural, came right from his balls. “Uh-huh.”

“Amber,” Ellie said, “get on your knees and thank him properly.”

“Oh God…” Rick groaned the words as Amber sank to the carpet and commenced unfastening his trousers. Some part of him–neither loyal nor altruistic–had chosen to come here and to let this happen, and he knew it.

“You’re a nice guy, Rick,” Ellie said, exploring his upper body and licking from his clavicle to his jaw. “And nice things should happen to nice people. Especially at Christmastime.”

Erotic longing blotted out his more wholesome thoughts, and that was before Amber dragged down his lower garments to mid-thigh, exposing him. Setting him free.

“Oh wow,” he heard her say, as her breath and her fingers brushed the skin of his cock. “You’re even bigger than my boyfriend. Harder, too. Fuck, you look yummy.”

“Want her to?” Ellie inquired, reaching to detach Amber’s halo. “She’s no angel, but she sucks cock like one.”

“Y-Yes,” he said, embracing the moment. Choosing physical pleasure. Amber’s wet mouth closed around his glans, and she sucked on him. His head rolled back against the post, and he gave himself up to sweet sensation.

“That’s right,” Ellie whispered, massaging his neck muscles, and then easing the tux jacket off his shoulders, while that hot mouth vacuumed him softly. “Enjoy it–while I get you naked, like you want to be. Get that lovely hard body on show.” Jacket removed, she set about his dress-shirt, working it off him until he felt the bedpost’s curves along his spine and between his buttocks. “There,” she said, as Amber lathered his underside with her tongue, pressing his head against the ridges of her hard palate. “All bare and beautiful. Fuck, I love your chest, and your arms, and your stomach…” Her hands roved to each part she named. “I love it all. And Amber’s enjoying the other good stuff. Come here, sexy.”

She clutched his hair and drew down his face, as hers reached upwards. He let her kiss him and then let himself kiss back, locking into a liquid, open-mouthed embrace, with a rhythm to match Amber’s sucking. Then more of his cock was consumed, and he opened his eyes to see Ellie reaching down, pushing her friend further onto his shaft. “There,” she said, her face alive with mischief. “How good does that feel?”

He stared into her eyes, his breath ragged.

“I’ll take that as very.”

Rick’s jaw sagged, as his lower nerve endings sang their bliss. His ears were full of Amber’s gurgling.

“And it’s only going to get better,” Ellie told him, fingertips rotating on his nipples. “Wait till you’re fucking us. You do want to fuck us, don’t you?”

“God… I can’t…” The conscience-stricken words leaked through lust’s brain-swathing miasma. “I shouldn’t…”

“It'll feel so good,” Ellie insisted, “make the holidays really happy. Any hole you like, either one of us–however tight. The lube’s ready in my overnight bag.”

“The...” Her meaning cut through the horny haze that had all but enveloped Rick’s consciousness. “You said you hadn’t got any.”

“Woops! Silly me,” Ellie said, arching an eyebrow. “Must’ve forgotten in the excitement. Lube to ease the traction. Way to forget all my A-level Physics!” She bit her lip.

Through pleasure’s rhythmic waves, Rick burned with a whole new emotion. “You played me.”

Ellie’s fingers teased. “Only a little…”

The revelation did nothing to lessen how glorious Rick’s cock was feeling. But it brought his anger surging. Bursting from his stupor, he clamped a hand to Ellie's jaw so tightly that she released her grip on Amber, who in turn came gasping off his cock. “You played me, you little bitch,” he spat.

“Yesssss.” Ellie’s eyes glinted, despite the strength of his clutch. “There he is.”

Rick scowled. “There who is?”

“The man you really are.”

For a fraction of a second, he was rendered speechless. Then he rallied. “Get on your knees, you lying–little–slut, and I’ll show you who I am. Go on, hit the fucking floor.”

“Sir, yes, Sir,” she breathed, wetting her lips as she sank to join Amber.

Rick gripped the back of her head and let his pre-matrimonial self take charge. His cock, as he fitted it to her mouth, was like steel, and he had intentions to match. Rick discovered he was ready to fuck, like no one else was watching.

~~~~ 

If Melanie McIntyre ever forgot why she didn’t do blind dates, this evening would serve as a reminder. Ten minutes’ conversation with Hugo Wykes had been all she needed to see past his surface appeal to the milquetoast guy beneath. After a year co-habiting with Dale, the last thing she needed was ‘bland’, least of all in the bedroom. And Melanie’s sex-radar suggested Hugo would be just that. What had Esther been thinking, or Rick for that matter? It wasn’t that she was unappreciative of her best friend’s efforts, but maybe the ease with which Esther had found marital bliss had blinded her to the difficulties most people had in establishing a meaningful connection.

At any rate, Melanie had been so deflated by the encounter that leaving seemed the best option, the Manor’s grandeur notwithstanding. She’d felt ungrateful even as she texted Esther, but better not to rain on anyone’s evening. Escape made more sense. Then her plans had changed again. A flirtatious chat with a hot waiter in the foyer, complete with phone number exchange. It was followed by a longer, even more fun encounter on the front steps, this time with a globetrotting journalist taking a smoke break. He’d had an unshaven, adventuresome air and was made more attractive by the fact that he was jetting to some far-flung trouble spot in the early hours. Of course, this also precluded any immediate consummation of their extended tease. A rain check and another set of digits provided consolation, as did the multiple glasses of champagne they’d enjoyed in a dark foyer corner.

Melanie was still smiling when she doubled back to use the Manor’s antique powder room. Esther had replied to her text. YOU’RE NOT SHALLOW, MEL, JUST MADDENING, :D I’M SURE THE ELUSIVE MR FABULOUS ISN’T FAR AWAY. I’M OPTING OUT TOO–MIGRAINE ALERT. RICK CAN PARTY FOR BOTH OF US. CHAT SOON x

Everyone’s bailing, she thought. Maybe I should go dance with Rick. She dismissed it, though. Esther’s man could fend for himself. And no way did she want to bump into Hugo. Such were her thoughts, returning from the restroom, when she saw it.

Rick was at the foot of the grand staircase, immersed in some close-up exchange with a cutesy waitress in reindeer antlers, all animation and wiggling arse. She was tugging on his arm, and he half-heartedly resisted, ultimately accompanying the girl in a semi-inebriated rush upstairs.

Melanie stood rooted, her heart thumping and the cold adrenaline shock serving to sober her. What the actual fuck? Not Rick. Not Esther’s Rick. Good-humoured, charming, devoted… Please God, any man but him.

There had to be an explanation other than the obvious. Some kind of… emergency? The girl’s face had hinted at such. Whatever the truth, Melanie needed to know–or she’d never be able to look Rick in the face again. She let them reach the return, then clutching her purse like a security blanket, she headed up the staircase in pursuit.

On topping the second flight, she looked at the choice of darkened corridors, straining for giveaway sounds. She thought she heard urgent mutterings from one passageway and bee-lined that direction, slowing to prevent her heels from clattering too loudly on the wood floor. On her next turning she got lost among the oil paintings and tapestries and ended up wandering the hotel’s network of shadowed passageways, figuring she’d lost her quarry. Then she stumbled upon a tall, oak door, light sneaking through its crack, the one room that appeared to have life within.

There was music–a cosily crooned version of Let It Snow–and some low-key verbal interactions that boded nothing innocent. She held back, questioning why she was playing detective, fearful of appearing foolish if she poked her nose into the room. For some minutes she prevaricated, summoning courage before second-guessing herself. Then she heard a voice, unmistakably male, raised in anger. What the hell was going on in there? Curiosity’s demands held sway. Heart racing once more, Melanie placed her palms on the great door and pushed, inching with agonised trepidation until it was open a half foot. The angle gave her a clear shot of what was happening–and what she saw blew her mind.

The carpet was strewn with random items (including, weirdly, a jumbo-sized candy cane), but it was the scene before the room’s four-poster bed that had her attention. A naked guy was standing by a corner post–tall and broad-shouldered with a physique worthy of an ancient-Greek Olympian. His hair was tousled and his face, potentially handsome, was contorted into an expression of unalloyed savagery. His hands were moulded around the head of a girl–one of two who knelt semi-stripped at his feet, asses plumped on bare heels–and he was jamming her repeatedly onto himself while simultaneously thrusting. “No hands,” he snarled when the young thing reached defensively for his groin. “Deal with it.” Her arms dropped, and he continued to use her face like a cunt.

Despite her recent quest it was seconds before Melanie realised that the guy was Rick, so divergent was this rutting brute from the man she’d thought she knew. When the penny dropped, her mindfuck was complete. All she could do was watch as her best friend’s husband pulled out of one fucked throat and plunged into the next, making the brunette girl squelch and gurgle like her fair companion. The move afforded Melanie a glimpse of a cock she’d never expected to see–a great spit-drenched schlong as angry as Rick Lovett’s face. On he went, sharing his phallic rage between the two dripping mouths, filling one then the other with his bulging meat till both were drooling copiously onto the carpet.

“Is this who I am?” he growled, for some unfathomable reason, before picking up the fair-haired girl by the throat and putting her against the bedpost. “Is this who you fucking expected?”

“No…” she gasped, her face scarlet.

“No?”

“No – it’s even better.”

Whatever emotion these words inspired in Rick, he responded by turning her about and flinging her face-forward onto the bed. A brief struggle freed him from the garments around his ankles, then he climbed after his ponytailed prize, elevated cock swaying. Unlike her friend the fair girl was still wearing panties, but he made short work of that barrier, pulling the crotch aside and hooking it around one full ass-cheek. He gripped her roughly by the waist, fitted his cock to her pussy, and thrust like he was spearing a battle opponent, burying every steely inch in her depths. Her holler only seemed to embolden him, for he clapped hands to her swollen ass and fucked with a barbarism that Melanie could feel inside herself.

“Get up here,” he ordered the second girl, as he wrapped one hand around the first’s ponytailed ringlets and laid into her harder, whacking her ass with cheek-branding ferocity. “You’re next.” The sweet-faced girl with the raven hair clambered onto the bed, tits and ass exposed in lingerie that matched her partner’s. Barely relenting in his shafting of girl one’s cunt, he reached out to fondle and slap the other’s bouncy rack, his belligerent expression modifying into an evil leer. “You wanted to party,” he said, hand still squishing one of her breasts. “Well it’s party time now. Ass in the air!”

The girl didn’t hesitate. Kneeling alongside her fucked friend, she thrust her pert rear in reverse. Nor did Rick make her wait. Pulling out of the moaning blonde, he lined up with the pretty sweetheart’s pussy and rammed it full, gripping her shoulders as his body smacked brutally into hers. Then he subjected her slender form to the same ravishment that he’d meted out to her opposite number, while the fair girl watched side-on, frigging herself senseless. All three were so lost in lust that none even threatened to notice the partially open door.

Melanie, lurking in the dark exterior, watched all, agape and aghast. The transformation of the man whose birthdays and barbecues and Christmas parties she’d attended was so entire it defied belief. What the fuck would she tell Esther? That the man she’d married was a fraud? That the love of Esther’s life was a sexual deviant, some depraved Neanderthal who sent her home from work functions and hours later was shafting balls deep into a pair of random sluts? That everything she thought she knew was founded on a lie? She couldn’t not tell her friend. But the truth was so extreme that its sharing would sound fantastic. Melanie, not Rick, would come across as the liar–a fake friend spurred by envy into spinning some vile and deranged fantasy.

And so, her hand slipped into her purse and found her phone. Breath held, Melanie accessed the camera’s video function and zoomed in until she had a clear view of the proceedings. Then she hit play and caught it all. The part where Rick spread Girl One’s legs and fucked her standing side-on to the bed. The part where he bounced Girl Two reverse cowgirl on his cock, making Girl One kiss her and suck on her tits. The part where he made out with both girls while they lovingly kneaded his balls and wanked his shaft. And the most extraordinary part–where he allowed them thirty seconds to lube their assholes from the tube one had accessed in her bag, jacking his length while they frantically fingered each other’s rear in preparation.

“Guess who’s first.” He advanced, weapon in hand. “Here’s a clue. It’s less likely to get stuck this time.”

Melanie watched and filmed in shock and awe as he plunged deep into each girl’s ass, his bollocks bouncing off her cheeks on each ruthless insertion and to hell with how loudly either one cried out. She kept going until he pulled out and palmed himself to climax, spending his majestic load over two dutifully presented, pretty faces, roaring like a berserker as he came.

Only then did she press STOP and fade into the corridor’s darkness and from there into the night, nursing her dreadful knowledge. Only then did she leave Rick behind with his girls and his tawdry secret–the one he firmly believed was safe.

~~~~

Two whole days ticked away for Rick and for Melanie.

After his orgasm Rick had showered and dressed, as the girls lolled, touching themselves and each other. He’d wished them an ironic “Merry Christmas” and they’d each waved and blown him a kiss as he departed for the guilty trek home. Once there, he’d slept in the guest bedroom–a staple procedure when Esther was nursing a migraine, allowing him space to absorb what he’d done and to get his head straight. Saturday was all last-minute Christmas shopping. Too many boxes needed buying or ticking, too much domestic prep needed completion to allow for introspection. Esther rested up and thanked Rick for shouldering the brunt of it all while she recovered.

On Christmas Eve they relaxed together. He made her breakfast, and they watched old holiday movies in silence that was comfortable, at least on Esther’s part. “Mel’s barely acknowledged my texts,” she observed, mid-afternoon. “I wonder why.”

“Probably busy,” Rick said. It gave him an idea, though, and he excused himself to act on it.

After her departure Melanie had stolen someone else’s taxi, paying double, just to get away. Her sleep that night had been disturbed to put it mildly, and she felt spiritually rumpled all day Saturday, pondering her phone’s contents and wondering how and when to act on it. Christ, those contents… She could scarcely bring herself to answer Esther’s texts.

Her job was her salvation, and the Christmas rush allowed her little time to spare. Just as well, with the kaleidoscope of images tormenting her poor head. She even opened on Sunday, capitalising on the public’s December 24th desperation. The shop did good business, but at 4pm she turned the sign and closed the blinds, ushered out her final customers. She needed home, and a bath, and a drink, and to forget this mess until the holidays were over.

Then one final customer came banging on her door. Her heart thumped at the sight of him. Jesus Christ. What the hell did Rick bloody Lovett want with her?

~~~~

“Hi, Mel–it’s me. Would you let me in? Spare a thought for the poor, starving orphan boy. It’s Christmas Eve!” A last-minute dash to Mel's Bits and Bobs gift shop had struck Rick as inspiration, but the proprietor seemed oddly reluctant to let him into her self-styled emporium.

“Yes?” She half-opened the door and positively glowered at him around it. Damn that Hugo Wykes business must have gone really badly.

“Nice outfit,” he told her, indicating her sexy Santa get-up, with its off-the-shoulder collar, figure-squeezing bodice, and tight, mid-thigh skirt. “Festive.”

“Thanks,” she said, with zero thawing of whatever ice had formed. “Rick, I’ve shut up shop.”

“So I see.” He eased himself inside like she was being friendly Mel, looking around at the leftover decorations, gift basics, and fancy cards with which she’d stocked her shop for the holidays. “But I wanted to buy something extra for Esther,” he told her. “A stocking-filler, you know? She’s been ill, and you had those snow globes… There was one with an It’s a Wonderful Life theme, the ‘Welcome to Bedford Falls’ sign? You know Esther and old movies…”

“Guilty conscience?”

“She loves that… I’m sorry?” He stared at Mel, mind-cogs suddenly whirring. Her anger, meanwhile, seemed modulated by shock at what she’d just said.

“Nothing. Forget I spoke.”

“That’s difficult,” he said, summoning indignation. “Why would I have a guilty conscience?”

“No reason. Leave it.”

“Ohhh no,” he pursued, confident that she couldn’t know a thing about Friday night’s… occurrence. “You can’t just drop a remark like that, Mel, and then turn tight-lipped. What are you talking about? What’s with all the hostility?”

“You can’t think of anything? Seriously?”

“No, I can’t. Seriously.”

“Not even Friday night?”

Rick’s expression froze on his face. He had to wet his lips to respond. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really? Oh, that’s right,” she said, visibly getting into her flow. “I left the party early, so I wouldn’t know about anything that went on later that evening. Would I?”

“You…” Rick felt akin to the hiker who’d looked back and noticed a ‘Minefield’ sign. “You stayed? What is this, Mel, have you been spying on me?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Rick. If I had been, what would I have seen? Would it have been worth my time?”

She was toying with him. Whatever she did or didn’t know, she was turning it into a game. “You wouldn’t have seen anything,” he said, bulling on with faked incomprehension, “because there was nothing to see.”

“Hmmm. Not even in that bedroom? The one where you went with the waitress? What would I have seen in there?”

Silence enforced itself. Rick stared at Mel, and she stared right back–level, waiting. So she knew some of it. Not to worry. “Okay,” he said, treading between the mines, “you’d have seen me try to help someone in need, that’s all.”

“I see,” Mel said, the words positively acidic. “How saintly of you. How in keeping with the season.”

“It wasn’t saintly, Mel.” He added an edge to his voice. “It was a pain in the ass.” Fuck. “I was minding my own business, and… and the waitress in question came looking for help with her friend, who’d got herself into a… a sticky situation.” Fucking fuck. “So…”

“What sticky situation?”

“A medical one.”

“Oh, I see. You were playing doctor.”

“I was trying to calm down a panicky situation.”

“Were you? Really?” Something in Mel snapped. She snatched her purse from behind the counter and accessed her phone. “Let’s see, shall we?” She searched avidly through its contents, as his trepidation became all-out dread. “Yes, here it is. Let’s have a look at your bedside manner. Let’s see Doctor Rick in action.”

She held out the phone, and he looked on himself–unmistakably him–naked and buried in Amber, with Ellie wriggling beside her, all to a backing of Christmas music. Rutting like a bastard and loving it.

“There it is,” Mel said. “Rick to the rescue. What was the problem? Were they both having a seizure? You’re very hands-on, I see. Were you administering medication?”

Rick divided his gaze between the explicit video and Mel’s incandescent face, his whole world narrowing down to one explosive horror. “You fucking filmed it…” he breathed.

“The whole thing. It goes on and on. You gave quite the performance.”

“You can’t keep this, Mel,” he said, hand darting involuntarily for the phone. “You have to delete it.”

She jerked it away, dark eyes blazing. “Hands off,” she said. “It’s on my laptop too, so don’t waste your time. And it’s burned in here.” She indicated her head. “There’s no unseeing it, believe me.”

“You can’t show that to Esther,” Rick told her. “Don’t tell her. Mel, please.”

“Don’t tell her?” Her whole form was tense with fury, from her shaggy, blonde bob to her Santa boots. “That her husband’s some kind of… of animal? That he’s a cheating fuck? You don’t think she deserves to know that?”

“I’m not a cheating fuck, Mel–you have to believe me.”

“This kind of suggests otherwise.” She held up the phone again, so he could see himself split Ellie’s legs into a V and ram his cock deep inside her.

“Jesus… Fuck… Put that away. It was a one-off! A freak event! Never happened before, never again, I promise you. I’ve always been faithful to Esther. They… It… just… just hit me out of a clear blue sky.”

Mel stared at him askance, brandishing the phone. “Oh, so those little pixies just lured you off the straight and narrow–poor, weak married man. That’d be even more pathetic if I thought it was true. But it doesn’t look like you took much luring. Esther wouldn’t believe it–I had trouble enough–but she will when she sees this, poor thing. God, Rick, I thought you were one of the good guys!” She was tearing up and glaring at him, as the situation spiralled way out of control. Desperately, Rick sought a handle on it, before she kicked him out or made a call. Both seemed imminent.

“I am one of the good guys. I… was. Don’t roll your eyes. There’s none of us perfect. It’s not like you’re an angel yourself.”

His words acted like a slap. “What did you say?”

He’d gone there, so he might as well double down. “Don’t be a hypocrite, Mel, it doesn’t suit you. For starters, you shagged your surfing instructor last summer, while Dale was laid up with sunstroke.”

Mel stared at him, speechless, her already rose-tinged complexion reddening further.

“He was lying under cold towels in your hotel room, while you were in some shack taking it every which way from a young Australian bloke,” Rick pursued. “And it’s not the first time you’ve gone behind a boyfriend’s back. Is it?”

“You… How…” But she knew how.

“Esther told me, of course. We’re married. We tell each other ev… well, most things.”

“How fucking dare you,” Mel fumed, slamming the phone onto the counter. “I’m not perfect, but she’s your wife. She’s my best friend. Don’t make out it’s the same thing.”

“I’m not,” he said, “and I’m not judging you, I’m clearly not placed to do so. I’m just making a point.”

“And what point is that?” She looked fit to punch him, but she looked something else as well. Something on which he could capitalise.

“That some of us aren’t as good as we’d like to think we are. I know I’m not. I proved it to myself on Friday night.”

“And you think I’m the same, is that it?”

“I can’t speak for you,” he said hastily. “But I’ve had all illusions shattered regarding myself.” This was some dangerous road he was going down but fuck it. He was already sitting on a crateful of gelignite. “Full disclosure, Mel, I’ve spent the past two days telling myself that I was ‘lured’ as you put it by two little sirens–but you’re right, that’s bullshit. I went to that room, and I stayed there, and I did what I did–not because they tricked me or led me astray, or all the lies I’ve been telling myself, and not because I’m bored with Esther either, because I’m not. None of that’s the reason.”

“Then what is the reason?” Mel demanded. “Full disclosure.”

“I fucked them because I’m greedy,” he said. “And because it felt good. In all its wrongness, it felt great–as I think you saw.”

“Oh I saw,” Mel said, with a brooding, unreadable quiet.

“I fucked them for the same reason you fucked your surfer guy,” Rick went on, “while your partner was languishing with sunburn. And yes, you’ll probably say your relationship was going nowhere and that it’s not the same, and you may well be right, but it’s the same to this extent… You were with someone who doted on you and who you’d no desire to hurt, but you cheated on him anyway. Why? Because you’re greedy and because it felt good, in all its wrongness. Didn’t it?” She looked at him with burning malevolence. “Didn’t it, Mel?”

“Fuck you,” she mumbled.

“Fuck you? Is that your whole answer? Not even a denial?” His heart was racing like on Friday night. Rick couldn’t believe what he was doing. He wasn’t even clear how he’d ended up heading down this road. But he knew that the short-term prospects for his marriage’s survival depended on his reaching one destination and one only. And so he kept going.

“Answer me two questions,” he said. “I’ve told you the truth, and it hurt, so be honest with me. Okay?”

Mel seethed and said nothing.

“Question one–why did you film me?”

“Evidence,” she said, reflexively.

“Bullshit.” Mel reddened more deeply at the word. “Ten seconds would have done, or your word. But you stood there and filmed it all, while staring at my naked ass. Question two– ”

“I…”

“How many times have you watched it since, all the way through?”

Mel looked like she might require physical restraint not to hurt him, but that other ‘something’ still blazed in her eyes.

“How many times, Mel?”

“Fuck. You.”

“Question three– ”

“You said there’d be two.”

“I lied. Question three–what were you doing while you watched?”

Silence, but for Mel’s shallow, furious panting.

“What were you doing, Mel? Give me some honesty.”

“Honesty? Fuck you, you smug, cheating bastard!”

“You watched me cheat, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. So what?”

“You watched me shaft the fuck out of those little Christmas pixies, over and over, didn’t you?”

“I…”

“And you creamed all over your fingers while you watched, didn’t you?”

“You fucker! Don’t fucking flatter yourself.”

Rick laughed. “It’s in your face, Mel. It’s so damn obvious.” He grabbed the phone, on which his three-way was still playing out, and thrust it at her. “You’ve been getting off to this all fucking weekend, haven’t you? I’ll bet you got soaking wet even showing it to me!”

Mel’s hand lashed across his face, impacting so hard he dropped the phone. “Fucker!”

His cheek smarting, Rick grabbed hold of the wrist that had just served to whip it. “Jesus, Mel,” he said, as she wrestled to free herself, “I’ll bet you’re even wetter now, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Come on, you kinky slut, just fucking own it.”

“Yes!” she spat, her face almost puce, features contorted like a cat in heat. “I’m fucking wet. Happy?”

“No, just horny.” He grabbed her ass and dragged her Santa-suited form tight to himself, his mouth locking onto hers. She locked right back, seizing his shirt with her free hand and pulling him even tighter. His swollen cock was pressing against her, and she changed her grip to his ass, so that she could drag him closer and dry hump his bulging crotch, groaning all the while into his mouth. He gripped the hem of her dress and pulled the skirt up around her waist, before tugging her stockings and panties downwards. “Let’s see how wet, you are,” he said, inveigling his hand between her legs.

“No– No,” she said, pushing back, “strip first. Your clothes mustn’t smell of me.”

“Good point.” Rick was grinning as he divested himself of everything right there in Mel’s shop, clueless shoppers walking past, beyond the blinded windows. “Although maybe you just want to check out what you’ve been frigging your cunt to since you spied on me.” His shorts hit the floor and he moved on her, stark naked and cock thrusting.

“I fucking hate you,” she moaned, as her palm wrapped around his shaft, and two of his fingers plunged into her truly soaking cunt. He fucked in and out, the heel of his hand squishing against her clit, and mere moments later her body went into spasms, cunt clutching him, her own hand still possessively gripping his pole.

Rick experienced near-delirium at the insanity of what was happening. His wife’s best friend, Rick’s own potential downfall, was drenching his hand and arm as she came on his fingers. “Fuck yes,” he grated, pulling down her festive top and strapless bra to free her lovely, round tits. He proceeded to squeeze and suck them, fingers still lodged in her dripping hole. Mel was sobbing her orgasmic comedown, her piteous whimpers mingling with the cries of Ellie and Amber on her phone. It sounded to Rick like a heavenly Christmas choir was serenading him.

Inspired by the blended voices, he shoved Mel to the floor, her knees buckling easily. “Suck my cock,” he told her, pushing her face tight against it. “Let’s see if you can do a better job than the party bitches.”

She didn’t wait. Grabbing him at the base, she wolfed down a good half of his length and proceeded to suck the fuck out of him, head bobbing in a gluttonous frenzy, shaggy bob in motion with the rest of her. Then she spat on him, licked all the way from his balls to his head with the full blade of her tongue, and consumed him utterly, her throat gurgling all around his glans and both her hands clamped to his ass. All through it, she stared up at him, like she’d got murder on her mind as well as cock.

“That’s it,” he growled, laying both hands on her head and snarling his fingers into her hair. “I always figured you for a filthy girl, Mel. Now let me show you what I did to them, since you didn’t get that bit on film.” He drew her up to the ridge of his glans, gripped hard, and fucked deep into her throat, pulling her down simultaneously so that her face smacked into his groin. Then he used her hard, pistoning in and out of her mouth in a spit-soaked blur, while continuing to push her down on him. “This is how I face-fucked the bitches,” he said, voice constricted, “just like you’ve been craving.”   

He pulled her free, and she gobbed saliva all over his cock, her features still fierce with rage and lust. Then he pulled her to her feet and kissed her hard, her tongue thrashing instinctively in response to his. “Christ, Mel,” he said, smacking hands to both her ass cheeks, “I’ve been in denial about how much I wanted to fuck you. Let’s put that right.”

He lifted her off the floor, and she wrapped her legs around his ass, instinct doing its thing again, until she was clinging to him, cunt poised above the head of his cock. “Merry fucking Christmas,” he said and brought her sliding all the way down.

“Ohhhhh God….” Mel groaned, as Rick lowered her all the way onto himself, filling her up inch by inch till he was deep inside her.

“There,” he told her. “Now let’s get comfortable, so I can introduce you to someone I thought had gone forever.” He carried Mel, as she uttered helpless, delectable little squeaks, to her shop counter–obligingly tidy and not too high–and laid her down on it, still fully impaling her. “Raise your legs,” he instructed, and she did, until he could grip her by both ankles and spread her wide like he’d done to Ellie. “Good girl. Now fucking brace yourself.”

Mel did just that, gripping the counter right before he drew back and drove the head of his cock as deep as he could shaft it, making her howl. “There it is!” he yelled, pulling back and slamming into her again. “That’s what you’ve been waiting for. Well, you’re going to fucking get it.” Enough words. They understood one another. Rick held Mel in place and rammed rhythmically, long, and hard, until he was landing stroke on stroke in endless, rapid succession, pounding the hell out of her squelching, insatiable cunt and setting her tits in fluid motion. She drilled him back with her gaze, fingers frigging manically at her clit to and through the peak of her second orgasm. Her blonde head flopped back onto the counter, and she lay panting and otherwise inert.

Rick pulled out of her and flipped her all but limp body onto hands and knees. “Wait there,” he said, leaving to fetch a key item. He slapped her ass on return and thrust his tongue deep into her sopping pussy, making her keen loudly and grope her own tits. “Let’s hope this counter holds up,” he said, as he climbed up with her and inserted himself. “Ready?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but rather took her by the waist and shoulder and let her have his full compliment, stretching out her cunt as he banged her from behind. “All this to buy a fucking Christmas present,” he said, groping her tits as he power-fucked her weeping cunt. “The things a man has to do, right? Speaking of which…” He reached for the item where he’d set it, prepped the requisite app, and then held it where they could both get a clear view.

Mel cried aloud to find herself being videoed as Rick screwed her. “Fuck! You don’t need to do that. I won’t say anything now, will I?”

“I want you to see yourself,” Rick hissed, probing deep. “I want you to take a good look at you and me. A pair of no-good fuckers–cut from the same dirty cloth. Am I wrong?”

She mumbled something incoherent as he fucked.

“Am I wrong, Mel?”

“You bastard…”

“Am I?”

“No!” she raged, staring back at him with fire in her eyes. “I’m a fucker and so are you. Now give it to me like the fucker you fucking are!”

He dropped the phone and slammed it to her, gripping her shoulder-and-tit, and committing like it was his final fuck on Earth. She took it all and frigged her accompaniment. “Where do you want it?” he demanded when he felt the tension rising in his balls. “Tell me where you want me to shoot it.”

“You know where,” she said. “Same place you want.”

“You sure?”

“Oh Jesus, don’t pussy out on me now, fucker,” she said. “Put it where you want to. Put it where I fucking deserve! Do it!”

“Ma’am, yes, Ma’am,” Rick muttered under his breath. He waited till climax was imminent, then he pulled out and set himself to the hole that had been teasing him. He buried himself in it so deep that his bollocks kissed her cheeks. The cum exploded from him as she wailed, filling her ass, spewing out of him till every drop had been swallowed in her deepest recesses. “Fuck…” he groaned at the last of it, and Mel sobbed into the counter, one hand still rubbing circles on her clit.

~~~~

He scrubbed himself with hand-soap and water in Mel’s restroom till the scent of her cunt was negligible. On returning to the front of the store he found her adjusted and subdued, and significantly less willing to meet his eye.

“This never happened,” she said, firmly.

“Neither did Friday night.”

“Agreed. Neither did Friday night.”

“Good.”

“Wait,” she said, when he went to leave. “Don’t forget that stocking-filler.” She went to the back of the store and returned with a snow globe–the one he’d specified.

“Thanks,” he said, when she placed it in his hand. “Merry…”

“Don’t,” she responded. “Just don’t. There’s nothing merry or wonderful about what happened here tonight. Get out the door–and fuck back home to your wife.”

~~~~ 

“So, are we all set for playing host to your parents, tomorrow?” Rick inquired.

Esther glanced to where he was selecting a bottle from the drinks cabinet. She was curled on one corner of the sofa, stroking Rumpole, the couple’s contentedly recumbent cat, Roman Holiday lined up on streaming. “I am,” she said with a smile. “I can’t speak for you.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Speaking of parents–it seems Mel is extending her visit to hers, so she won’t be joining us for Boxing Day. For whatever reason.”

“Really? That’s a shame,” Rick said. “Still, there’s always New Year.”

“Mel gotta be Mel.”

“Indeed.” He returned to the sofa with a bottle of Italian liqueur.

“The Disaronno Originale,” Esther remarked as he filled their glasses. “We are pushing the boat out.”

Rick raised his glass and tapped it to hers. “Well,” he said, having taken a sip, “it’s good to indulge oneself. Especially at Christmas.”