This story follows on from my 'It Was a Few Days before Christmas', and sees Lizzy gift wrapped for Mr P. Although this story stands by itself, it may make it more enjoyable to read the earlier story first.
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It was Christmas Eve. At the end of the long dining room stood a big Norway spruce tree, 12 or 13 feet high, with the top brushing the ceiling of the room. Mr P had cut the tree that morning and he and two of the grooms brought it into the house and set it up. Next to the tree stood a pair of steps -- the kind with a platform on top. On the platform stood a library stool and on top that stood Lizzy on tiptoe and at full stretch using both hands to fix a faded and much worn angel to the top branch. From the other end of the room, her mother called "Lizzy! You mad child, you'll break your neck!"
"Not to worry Maggie; if she falls, your father will catch her," Arthur said, nodding towards the man steadying the ladder. Although now in his seventies, he would be quite capable of catching the girl. The year before, while shopping in London with Lizzy he stopped a young thug with a knife who attempted to mug them. By the time the police arrived, he was administering first aid, having told Lizzy to say the hero of the day had modestly left the scene "In case police disagree with my interpretation of 'reasonable force'". The lad was in hospital for a week.
Lizzy, who usually wore no make-up at all, was wearing vivid red lipstick today. She was conscious that her mouth was very wide and when she did wear lipstick, she emphasized the middle part of her lips. She had on a black velvet off the shoulder skater dress with a short flared skirt: short enough so that the top of her hold up stockings were nearly visible even when she was as ground level. From the top of the ladder, the highly erotic area of leg above the top of her seamed stockings was visible from most of the room. The older man at the base of the tree was gazing fixedly up at her "You are wearing drawers, Lizzy," he said with a heavy tone of mock disappointment.
"Yes, Mac; I knew we would be decorating the tree and I suspected you would offer to steady the ladder."
"Killjoy", he muttered. She climbed down the shaky ladder and he grabbed her gently but firmly around the waist to lift her gallantly, if redundantly, off the last step.
"Tree done, all the presents done, now for a drink," said Lizzy.
Her mother corrected her, "Not all the presents, Lizzy. We haven't done Mr P's yet."
"Oh, right. What are we giving him?" asked Lizzy breezily.
"Well, we rather thought... You," replied her mother, tilting her head to one side.
"What? Last week you had Father fuck me on the dining table and now you acting as my pimp for the staff. This is too much," said Lizzy angrily.
Her grandfather, Mac, who still had his hands on her waist, spun her round to face him "Lizzy, the Pargeters are not staff: they are like family. Pargeters have been serving this family for a thousand years. They were with us at Crécy and Agincourt and in every war since. Joe Pargeter, the present Mr P, was with me in Afghanistan when we helped the Mujahideen chase the Soviets out in 1989. If you do not want to do it, then say so, but do not call Joe Pargeter staff. Lizzy and her grandfather had a very close bond and his reproach hit home.
"Sorry, Mac" she almost whispered, "I did not know."
"Well?" Her mother returned to business. "Will you do it? It is only for a couple of hours. It is not as if you are going to be his concubine."
"I guess..."
"Elizabeth!" Her mother seldom used Lizzy's full name and then only to scold her, "You are not American. I want to hear 'Yes'"
"Very well, yes."
Margaret addressed her father, "Father - " Only Lizzy called her grandfather Mac and only the two of them knew why, "- would you be so kind as to undress Lizzy."
He tapped her left arm to indicate she should lift it, which she did. He then reached under her arm, unfastened the hook-and-eye at the top of the hidden zip, and pulled the zip down to her waist. Margaret was intrigued to know how he was able to go to the hidden zip without the slightest hesitation, but said nothing.
The boned top of Lizzy's dress fell open revealing her small but well formed breasts and with the slightest nudge from her grandfather, the dress fell to her ankles. She stepped out of it. Now she was only wearing her hold up stockings and a pair of pale blue silk French knickers, having removed her shoes earlier to climb the ladder contraption.
"Beautiful knickers Lizzy," her mother could not stop herself saying. "Where did you get them?"
"They let me off school one weekend last term because I was ahead and Mac took me to Paris as a treat: an atelier somewhere in the 8th -- he'll know," replied Lizzy, nodding towards her grandfather, forgetting she was practically naked in front of most of her family.
"When you women have finished swapping fashion tips..." Arthur brought the room to order.
"Take them off Lizzy," said her mother. While Lizzy wriggled out of her knickers, her mother and father moved behind her with a length of black silk ribbon. "Put your hands behind your back." Starting in the middle of the length, they put a turn around her long slender neck, like a classic Victorian choker. Then with one of them on each end of the ribbon, they started to circle her like maypole dancers. The ribbon went from the back of her neck over her shoulders, crossed between her breasts, round the back and crossed again, coming forward at waist level and plunging in a deep V between her legs, up her arse crack and finishing by tying her arms together at the wrists and elbows at the back. "I do prefer tying the elbows together as well as the wrists: it keeps the shoulders back and the tits out, I find," said her mother.
