left to me to get my case from the boot and lug it up the steps to the front door. No sign of him yet.
I thought about ringing the doorbell, but it seemed a bit silly when I had a key of my own. I opened the door and stood looking at that same Christmas tree, still gorgeously adorned and fairylit, towering over the handsome vestibule like a green bushy gatekeeper.
The tree welcomed me back, but there was still no sign of Jasper.
I pulled my suitcase on to the parquet and shut the door behind me.
‘Hello?’
Perhaps he was out. But his car was in the drive and he wouldn’t leave lights on in the house before leaving – it was just such an un-Jasper thing to do. Maybe he was chopping wood in the kitchen yard? Now that I’d like to see …
My mouth already watering, I passed through the back kitchen and looked hopefully into the yard, but there was no strapping, axe-wielding man to be seen with shirtsleeves pushed up his arms and an honest sweat gathering on his brow. Worse luck.
I returned to the hall and called out again, but without much hope of a response. As I did so, something glittering under the tree caught my eye and I noticed a parcel in holographic wrapping paper lying there.
Was this my Christmas present?
I knew I should wait until he was around to share the exchange of gifts, but I was too intrigued not to pick the box up and take a closer look.
There was a card on it. I looked for Jasper’s writing, expecting it to have the conventional ‘To Sarah, Merry Christmas, love Jasper’ format on it, but it didn’t. It said, ‘Open me now. Don’t wait.’
Ooh.
I looked around, convinced now that I must be being watched. Would Jasper have put a hidden camera somewhere? On the stairs, on the wall, in the tree?
I obeyed the directive on the tag and began to unwrap the parcel. Inside the paper was a box and the box contained a pair of brown leather cuffs with buckles and rings. Slightly disappointing, as Christmas presents go, but there was another card inside and I picked it up, my heart skippy with excitement.
‘Put on the cuffs. Find your next gift in the drawing room.’
I buckled the new cuffs around my wrists. They were comfortable and felt luxurious; obviously the best quality, which was typical of Jasper.
In the drawing room there was still no sign of the man himself but I soon found the next gift, a flat rectangular box that took up most of the chaise-longue it had been placed upon.
Inside it, wrapped in layers of silver tissue paper, was a tiny filmy black lace babydoll nightdress; more like gossamer than lace, in fact. It came with a pair of hold-up stockings and a frilly garter but nothing else. A card fluttered out when I unfolded it.
‘Put these on. Come to the office.’
Surely he had to be watching? I felt intensely self-conscious, despite the silent stillness of the room, as I pulled off my boots, stepped out of my jeans, unbuttoned my shirt. I was strongly conscious of undressing for someone, even though there was nobody there. I tried to be graceful and seductive instead of taking it quickly, imagining Jasper’s eyes, his face, his intent concentration at all times.
The babydoll was barely there against my skin, just a little gauzy web over my breasts and belly, so short that it left the lower half of my pubic triangle exposed.
I tried to smooth it down so it might cover more, but there was no point. It was supposed to be this short. I sat on a buttoned velvet stool and eased on the stockings – carefully, because they were so sheer a sharp look would probably ladder them.
Dressed and ready for action – but not the kind of action in an action movie – I tiptoed on my stockinged feet over to the office.
I felt so sure that Jasper would be in there that I knocked first.
No direction followed, either to enter or to wait. I knocked again, then turned the handle.
No, he was not there.
On his leather swivel chair was another box, stout and square.
This one proved to contain a little silk-embroidered case inside which lay a pair of shining silver balls. They jingled when I took them out. Of course, I knew what they were. I hadn’t studied the historical evolution of sex toys for nothing. But, strangely perhaps, given our no-holds-barred relationship, I’d never yet experienced them in play.
A label was stuck inside the lid of the case.
‘Insert them,’ it said, ‘and walk (carefully) up the stairs to the master bathroom.’
And now I was glad to be alone and, hopefully, unobserved. I removed the box from the chair and sat down, considering how this was best to be done. I thought it best not to put them in while I was sitting bare-bottomed on the seat, so I stood up again and leaned against the desk instead. Or did I need to be lying down?
No, I would stay in this position and, if any adjustments needed to be made, I would see to them. I took one of the balls out of the case and jiggled it up and down in my palm. It made the most beautiful low chiming sound. Whose idea was it to make them do that? It seemed a bit random, but pleasingly so.
I reached down below, keeping my thighs apart, and rested one shiny curve against the shallow dint behind my pussy lips. It felt cold, but unthreatening. Jasper had certainly put more menacing objects than this up there quite painlessly.
I gave it a little nudge, thinking perhaps it would be better to do this lying down, because my wrist was beginning to ache. But I didn’t have to struggle to insert it at all – it glided in and my pelvic muscles held it in place. For a moment, I worried that it would be lost up there, but all the same I pushed the other one in behind it – and now I could really feel them together, squashed in and stretching me. Keeping them in would constitute a fairly serious workout for my pelvic floor. I supposed Jasper was only trying to be helpful.
I pushed myself off the desk and tried to stand up straight. I felt the balls move inside me to accommodate themselves to this new posture. I clamped my thighs together and they seemed to grow, then shrink when I relaxed my stance. I tried bending over, which threw my muscles into a panic of clenching, desperate not to lose their new guests. How freely was it possible to move wearing these? I tried a few dance steps. It required a high level of concentration, but it was possible.
Obeying the directive on the card, I left the office and headed for the stairs. I was conscious of a faint click-clicking inside me as I walked, and an occasional musical note. As I took one step after another I felt the balls slip and slide as if struggling to escape, and I was careful to keep my muscles clenched. It was a potent reminder to me that I was never to forget my sexuality. I wondered if Jasper would make me wear them in any other contexts and the thought was shiver-inducingly exciting.
The bathroom door was open and I walked in and looked around. I failed at first to locate the next parcel but found it eventually underneath the sink.
I wasn’t particularly surprised to find a string of anal beads – very pretty ones like pearls that you could probably get away with wearing around your wrist at a party – and a small bottle of lube.
I didn’t even remember to look for the card before I started coating the tip of a finger in the gloopy substance. Too late now, I thought, grimacing. Still, this was undoubtedly the thing to do, and I could read the card once this business was taken care of.
I prepared myself carefully, then began to insert the little string of beads until the plaited end was left protruding. Again, these were not uncomfortable compared with some of Jasper’s plugs and once it was done I felt no more than a little daring and very sensually stimulated.
I took a good look at myself in the full-length mirror from all angles. I was a sex kitten, ready to play. If I’d been able to send a snapshot of myself like this to my year-ago self, she’d have screamed and probably torn the thing in two. Would she even have recognised herself? It was hard