What Christmas Lights Are For

A gentle femdom Yuletide fantasy

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The New Year will be better. How could it not? Work has been too demanding to make the long flight to see your family worth it, especially for just the one day, so you make yourself a too-late dinner, put the dishes away, slip into a worn but comfy nightgown, and settle in for a cold and lonely evening. You decide to pretend that it is any other night but Christmas Eve, a holiday you haven't really cared about since you were a girl, anyway. You try imagining yourself at peace with it. At least there's wine and TV.

Then the doorbell rings-you hear a woman's voice shout "Delivery!"-and you open the door just in time to see the truck pulling away.

There on your doormat, kneeling, is a man. He's nude except for the candy-cane-striped rope harness binding him, a matching collar and a leash. Oh, you had so hoped that someone would get you someone for Christmas! And here he is. His body is well-made, and his mind well-trained: he doesn't stand, doesn't speak, doesn't even look up into your eyes since you haven't said that he may. His bare skin has been dusted lightly with silver glitter. At your feet and between his knees, you find a packing slip containing his name and vital stats, a description of how he was matched to you, something that seems to be a narrative and personal testimony explaining his decision to volunteer into slavery. There's a gift receipt, and a note from just who you'd expect: "I remember you always wait until Christmas morning to open your presents. Good luck!" You can almost hear her smirk.

It's cold but you can't help but linger here, soaking up the feeling you get looking down on him. It's snowing just a little, and when the snowflakes land on the ropes they stick. When they land on his body they melt into tiny specks of ice-water. He's shivering.

You help him to his feet, and leash-in-hand you walk him into your home. Your other hand presses him firmly in the small of his back, just as you might guide someone new to dancing.

In the kitchen you point at the floor and he kneels where you point, eyes still dutifully lowered, while you make a cup of hot chocolate to warm him. You watch the poor thing shiver on the floor at your feet. Since he's still bound and you like him that way, he can't hold the mug. You consider pouring the hot chocolate into a saucer and having him lap it up, but that wouldn't get enough warmth into him, so instead you lift his chin to let him drink from the mug. He's so well-trained that just as his eyes would meet yours without permission he softly closes them. But you know his eyes will be as gorgeous as the rest of him. You tip the mug slowly so that he can drink without spilling, and you move your fingertips from his chin to just above his collar so you can feel the warm chocolate going down his throat.

But he's still shivering, so there's nothing to do but take him to your bed, pulling a mountain of blankets and comforters over both of you. Unwrapping and enjoying him right this very minute is so tempting you feel you must at least try to resist it. But there's nothing wrong with giving the box a little shake to guess at what's inside. You lay him on his side facing away and spoon him, pressing your long warm body against his marble-cold skin. You can feel that the ropes holding him helpless are snug but not too tight. His hair smells like evergreens; his skin tastes like sugar cookies.

His chill begins to yield to your body's warmth. And yet he's still shivering, so maybe it's more than just the cold. You remember, after all, that he came with a gift receipt. What if he worries about being returned or, worse, dumped out at the curb with the trash bags filled with wrapping paper, free to a good, bad, or awful home? Slaves spread rumors such things happened, though of course they never did. Such fear will not do-especially not on Christmas Eve-so you roll him to face you and command his eyes to meet yours. His are as beautiful as you knew they'd be. You let him see your face-alive you are certain with an almost feral delight-which lets him know exactly how pleased you are with your gift and that he is now where he belongs, with you, his mistress.

His luminous eyes well up with relief, gratitude, a devotion crushing and sudden. As your hands warm him, they claim him and calm him. Your hands almost seem to know his body from another life. Though you still haven't given him permission to make any sound, little helpless moans and whimpers of pleasure escape his mouth between your deep kisses.

You wonder if you can keep yourself from fully unwrapping and making use of this lovely present before the morning. You wonder if you could stop teasing him with your lips and fingertips. You have made him so desperately willing, maybe you should indulge yourself just this once?

But on the other hand, if we give up our beloved traditions, what do we really have left?

So with a commitment to the spirit of the season you are surprised to find within yourself, you relent in your soft conquest of his body, and take him by the leash to the foot of your Christmas tree. You push aside the other presents and have him lay on the tree apron, facing you. His ropes aren't meant for sleeping. But there's a gift here to help. You unwrap a box containing a set of steel shackles, a gift you bought yourself with the hope you'd soon have someone to lock them on. Opening gifts to yourself on Christmas Eve doesn't really count, surely. You untie and gather the rope and then shackle his ankles together and his wrists in front of him, adding a chain to connect them just long enough for comfortable sleep, but not long enough for any wandering from the place you've put him. You tuck a throw pillow under his head, you drape a fleece blanket over him and snug it in, and, because-why-not, you find your office party Santa hat for him and pull it on. The metal at his wrists and ankles catches the Christmas lights like the tree's other ornaments.

And you remember when you were a girl that as soon as you bought each gift for someone you loved, you'd wrap it and place it under the tree, imagining that the glow of the lights would slowly infuse the presents underneath with magic. You haven't thought of that in years, but it's never seemed more true as the lights paint themselves across his sweet face.

You finally pour yourself that glass of wine and settle into the couch just as you'd expected to, but instead of television you watch your handsome new slave fall asleep under your Christmas tree. You imagine his day must have been trying. It doesn't take long. So much to learn about him; so much to teach.

And then you return to your still-warm bed, certain delicious visions dancing in your head, trying and failing, just as you once used to, to hurry Christmas morning with sleep.