A Special Gift for Christmas - a Holiday Story

Their fifth anniversary was Christmas Eve. What can two economically struggling young people give each other for such a special Christmas when they can't afford any "special presents?"

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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2014 by The Technician.

Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.

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It had not been a good year for the Albrights. When they were married on Christmas Eve day five years ago, their plan had been to have a house by their third anniversary and a family by their fifth. It was coming up on their fifth anniversary but things were not going as planned.

They had been married for only a little over two years when they bought the house. It seemed like they were going to be ahead of their planned schedule, but the ink was barely dry on the contracts when the local factory closed.

Neither Mary nor David worked at the factory, but the loss of almost 400 jobs in a small, Midwestern town was devastating. Much of downtown was now empty. And, of course, with the implosion of the local economy, the price of homes fell drastically, leaving them about 40% "under water" on their mortgage.

Over the next year many other businesses closed or moved away. The office where Mary was a junior accountant laid off half of their staff-- including Mary. She would have taken almost any job to bring in some extra money, but there were no jobs available anywhere in the area.

David was a salesman with a large territory, so his job was relatively secure, but the factory had been a major client, so income from the territory fell considerably. In fact, it dropped so badly that the area formerly covered by three sales people was now covered by two.

When the other salesperson left, Dave got most of his territory. That helped somewhat with the income, but it meant that he could no longer homebase out of his house every night and would have to stay at motels several days of the week. With what he could now make, they were barely scraping by. Mary found occasional temp jobs, but the money from them usually went to catch up bills that slowly accumulated.

As Christmas, and their anniversary, approached, David and Mary agreed that they would limit themselves to only two gifts for each other. "No special gifts," David told Mary. "We just can't afford it this year."

"No special gifts," Mary agreed. "Only two gifts from each of us."

She knew that she had to keep to that promise, but that meant that the Christmas tree would be very bare this year. It was not an especially joyous time as Christmas approached. Then, on top of everything else, the district sales manager ordered an "end of the year selling blitz."

The idea was simple. In an attempt to end the year with slightly better sales, all sales people were to make personal calls on all of their accounts in the two weeks before Christmas. Tiered bonuses awaited those who met certain sales goals. Termination faced those who did not meet the minimum goals. This was not an optional effort.

For most of the sales staff, it meant a dozen or so extra calls that could easily be fitted in during the first week. For Dave, who now had the largest territory in the company and multitudes of small accounts, it meant being on the road for most of the two weeks leading up to Christmas. He called Mary each night and texted her several times each day, but it was still very hard on both of them.

On December 22nd, David broke the news that he would have to make calls all day the next day and even had one call scheduled for first thing on December 24th. "Their office closes at noon," he explained, "but the office manger will see me. I am sure there is no sale there, but it will mean that I have visited every one of my accounts."

Then his voice brightened, "And if I can make just one sale tomorrow, I will get into the second tier of the bonuses. First tier isn't much and we need it to catch up the bills, but if I get into second tier, I will buy you something special for Christmas."

Mary wished him good luck and said she would talk to him again tomorrow night, but as she closed out the call, she broke into tears. She knew her husband was a very good salesman and would probably get that one sale that he needed. But if he did, he would be able to get her something special and she would still be stuck with giving him a tie and a couple of crazy T-shirts to wear on his days off.

She did not sleep well that night. She spent most of the morning sitting in the living room staring at the four small packages beneath the tree. She knew what was in all four of them. Two of them were the tie and T-shirts which she had bought for Dave. The other two were perfume and chocolates that Dave had bought for her.

Dave wasn't very inventive when it came to gifts. But he knew which perfume was her favorite and that she truly loved those big balls of chocolate shaped like oranges. The combination of the shape and the slight orange flavoring was absolute heaven for her. One of Dave's gifts for her was the right size for her perfume. The other was definitely the square box that held a chocolate orange.

As she stared at the tree with tears in her eyes, she said aloud to herself, "If there was only something really special that wouldn't cost anything." She sat crying for a few minutes and then she realized that there was a gift that she could give that wouldn't cost anything. At least, it wouldn't cost any money.

Early in their marriage, David had asked her if they could try anal sex. Mary was willing to try any position for "normal sex," and she was willing to give an occasional blow job. In fact, sometimes she actually enjoyed giving or receiving oral sex. But her ass was virgin and she intended to keep it that way.

The second time that Dave asked about anal sex, she told him that she could never do that and if he loved her he would never ask again. He said, "OK," and, true to his word, never asked again. But she knew that he was still interested because he would occasionally visit websites that featured anal sex.

She knew what websites he visited because Dave was careless about deleting his browser history and Mary often used the history tab to get back to various sites that she had visited during the day. Sometimes she would have to go back to previous days, and that is when Dave's sites became visible.

She stopped crying and started to smile. Then she picked up her phone and texted him, "Make sure you stay in the motel you said you would tonight. I will meet you in the lounge there at 8:00. My inner slut has a special early Christmas / Anniversary gift for you... and it isn't going to cost any money." She knew that he would read the text when he stopped for lunch.

She then went back to her computer and went out to some of the anal sex websites that Dave occasionally visited to study what to do. It was pretty obvious how it was done, but she already more or less knew that. She did learn that she needed to have the proper lube and that she needed to be stretched out properly before he entered her or it could be very painful.

A quick check on another site showed her that the lube was very cheap and even available at the local WalMart. The only cost would be the gas to drive her car the 160 miles to the motel and then back. She figured that she had enough change in the coin jar on the kitchen counter to cover one tank of gas.

She spent the rest of the afternoon planning. She wanted this to be special, but at the same time, she wanted it to be clear that is was most likely a one-time thing. She had told Dave that her inner slut was giving him this gift. It wasn't really her, it was her inner slut, so she decided that it shouldn't look like her. Julie, a good friend of hers who lived down the street, was the drama teacher at the local high school. Mary called her and explained the situation.

She didn't explain the whole situation. She merely said that she wanted to surprise her husband at his motel and wanted to not look exactly like herself. "Oh," Julie said with a laugh. "A little fantasy sex-with-another-woman night while he's on the road."

Mary blushed when she said that. It wasn't exactly the case, but Julie was close enough to the truth to understand what Mary wanted. Some judiciously applied makeup, a long black wig, some brown no-prescription soft contact lenses, a mouth insert that changed her voice and slightly extended her lower jaw, and Mary's inner slut was standing in front of the mirror.

The dress was a little shorter than Mary normally wore and definitely much tighter. The spike stiletto heels not only changed her height, they also changed her walk. In order to stay on the tall heels she had to throw her hips provocatively from side to side as she walked.

'David is going to enjoy this,'

she thought to herself as she watched her image in the large mirror in the hallway of Julie's home. "So am I... I hope," she added aloud.

She got to the motel around 7:45 and waited outside in her car until just before 8:00. When she walked into the lounge, David was seated at the bar. He glanced up slightly as she entered, but then turned back to his bourbon. His daily per diem was enough to allow him the luxury of one drink before going to his room and calling Mary for the evening.

She slid onto the bar stool next to him. "You look lonely," she said. He looked up at her, but said nothing.

"You also look very sad," she purred, getting into her role as a slut picking up a man in the bar. "Want to tell me about it?"

David sighed and looked over at her. He stared at her for a really long time, but said nothing.

'I must look totally different to him tonight,'

she thought to herself.

Finally he began, "There isn't much to tell." He took a very small sip of his drink. "Today has been the lousiest day of my life." He beat his fist softly against the top of the bar. "All I needed was one lousy sale." He sighed again. "It didn't even have to be a big sale. An early re-order would have done it. I would have been in the second tier for bonuses."

He took a another sip of his drink and looked at Mary over the glass. "But noooooooo, he said. Everyone is trying get their internal stock down for end-of-year inventories." He lowered the glass, "What good does it do to offer an 8% discount when they are going to be paying at least 12% tax on their stock on hand?"

"I could have bought her that coat she's been looking at every time we walk downtown." he said as he set his empty glass down on the bar. "But now it's going to be just perfume and chocolates."

He looked over at her and finished with, "Like I said, the lousiest day of my life."

As he started to get up, she took his hand and said, "I could make you feel a lot better, and it won't cost you anything."

He paused and looked her very strangely. "If there was ever a day that I would be tempted to take you up on that, this is the day. But I'm a married man with a lovely wife that I haven't cheated on since our first date. I'm not going to start now. You're beautiful, and you even look a lot like her, but you aren't her and that is enough to stop me."

Mary knew that her face conveyed her confusion, but she said nothing.

"Tomorrow's our anniversary," he continued, "and I have a sales call to make in the morning and right after noon I have to stop at another client to help straighten out some past orders so he can close his year on time. I won't be home until late afternoon."

He stood facing Mary and said, "I can't even phone her tonight. I left my phone on the client's desk at my first call this morning. They're going to mail it back to me, but I won't have it back until the day after Christmas."

He started to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to face her and said quietly, "I hope you find what you're looking for tonight, but it's not me. I'm going back to my room alone and catch up on my paperwork. Then at least I won't have to be doing that tomorrow night." With that he nodded a goodbye and walked out of the lounge.

"He didn't get my texts," Mary said aloud. "He didn't know it was me."

She sat there for several moments trying to decide what to do. Her thoughts were interrupted by another man at the bar who leaned toward her and said, "I'm lonely." When she turned to look at him he added, "You want to share a couple of drinks and talk about how we can help each other's loneliness?"

She stammered, "No, no, I think I need to leave," and hurried out the door.

Almost as soon as she got into her car, her phone chirped indicating an incoming text. It was from David and said, "Can't call you tonight. Phone problems. Will see you early tomorrow afternoon. I love you." The text signature indicated that it had been sent through one of those free internet texting services.

It was several minutes later before Mary pulled out of the parking lot. Her face was wet with her tears.

***

David arrived home a little before four in the afternoon. Mary had the tree and the few outside lights already lit. As he entered the house, he could smell the delicious odors of a meal being prepared.

Both Dave and Mary had grown up in families where the Christmas meal was on Christmas Eve. They continued that tradition so that the Christmas Eve meal would also be a celebration of their anniversary. As he went into the kitchen, Mary said, "I waited until this morning to buy a small turkey. They were half-price. And I made the pie myself with apples that were almost nothing because they looked so bad... but they were perfect for a pie."

She was wiping off her hands as she spoke and as soon as she had set down the towel, she launched herself at Dave and flung her hands around his neck. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you," she said as she repeatedly kissed him.

"I love you, too," he answered and kissed her back. Then he turned slightly dour and said, "But I didn't make any sales yesterday or today" He shook his head, "That means no second-tier bonus."

"But you met your sales calls quota," she replied with a smile. "That means you still have your job. And the first-tier bonus will pay off our outstanding debts."

"But no special gifts for Christmas," he said. The disappointment in his voice was obvious.

"We have each other," she replied. "Why don't you go clean up and sort things out in your office. We'll be eating around six."

He took a shower and changed, but he was caught up on his paperwork, so he didn't have to stop in his study. Instead he came back to the kitchen and offered to help. Mary told him he could help best by staying out of the way, so he sat and watched Mary as she finished the preparations for their meal. She seemed unusually happy tonight.

A few minutes before six she said, "Would you light the candles, honey?" and Dave rummaged through the proper drawer to find a lighter. The candles were starting to get a little short. They were originally from the head table at their wedding reception and had been lit each Christmas Eve for the past five years.

Mary set the turkey and fixings on the table. The first year, she had allowed David to carve the turkey. It was a disaster. Since then, she prepared the slices herself at the counter and brought them to the table on a platter.

"Can you believe it's been five years?" she asked after they were both seated at the table.

"A toast," he replied and raised his wine glass. Then he said, "May the bride and groom find the riches they seek, the happiness they desire, and the love they deserve." He clinked his glass against hers and took a sip of the wine. That was the best man's toast at their reception. Dave repeated it on Christmas Eve each year.

"Aren't the bride and groom supposed to kiss after the toast?" Mary said with a smile.

"I believe they are," he answered and leaned across the table to meet her lips. Her mouth seemed unusually warm and he pressed tighter against her.

"Save something for the honeymoon," she replied with a laugh and sat back into her seat.

They ate slowly. Bites of food were interspersed with recollections of their wedding. All of her bridesmaids were now married. All but one had children. That thought caused a moment of silence as both struggled with what to say. Finally Dave said, "Soon. Regardless of what else happens, by this time next year, we'll be trying for our first child."

It was almost nine before they finished eating. Mary told Dave, "Now you can help me. We'll clean up the kitchen, I'll get changed, and then we'll sit in front of the fire until midnight."

That was another of their traditions. Since they had been in the house, each Christmas Eve, David would build a fire in the fireplace and they would cuddle on the couch watching the fire and the tree.

Mary was one of those cooks who cleaned things as she went along, so it took practically no time at all to put the kitchen in order. "Why don't you take our wine glasses into the living room while I slip into something a little more comfortable?" She told him as she slid her hands across his chin.

David did as Mary had suggested and a few minutes later, she came into the living room. David had expected her to slip into a pair of sweatpants as he had done, and as she normally did when they sat around in the living room. But instead she was wearing her honeymoon nightie.

The nightie was short, ending about half way down her ass. It was a white gauzy mesh with a two-inch white satin border across the bottom and up the middle. In the dim light of the tree and the fireplace it almost looked like the satin ribbon was floating on its own. A white satin thong completed the ensemble. There was supposed to be a small, matching white satin bra, but Mary had not worn it on their honeymoon and felt no need to wear it now.

She snuggle alongside him on the couch. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. They sat in silence watching the fire for a long time. Dave's hand was making slow swirls on Mary's waist. Shortly after the little clock on the mantle chimed ten, his hand moved up slightly and started stroking the side of her breast.

"We always wait until after midnight to open our presents," she said quietly.

"Oh, are you one of my Christmas presents," he replied.

"Maybe," she said with a smile, and then snuggled more tightly into his chest.

Around eleven, Dave said he was going to take their wine glasses into the kitchen for a refill. He also made a stop in the bathroom. He returned with two full glasses. It was starting to snow and they both stood at the front window watching the large, wet flakes cover the grass and trees.

Finally the clock chimed midnight. "Time to open out gifts," he said. And they returned to the couch. It didn't take long to open the four packages. Mary gave Dave a quick kiss on the cheek with each of the packages she opened.