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.