Chapter 30: Boxing Day
“Good morning, beautiful,” I greeted my wife the next morning.
She didn’t answer, just lay there in my arms, my perfect little spoon. I saw enough of the look on the side of her face to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“What happens when I’m not beautiful? What then, Davie?”
Ah, a softball. “Kaitlyn, I happen to know for a fact that your mother is still very precious to your father. Across the house, he is right now waking her up with those same words.”
“You can’t know that.”
“It’s an informed guess; I see how they are with each other. Do you see any good reason we can’t be the same when we get to their age?”
She thought about it, then said, “No, I don’t suppose I do. People change, but we have more reason than most to stay together.”
“Men are simple creatures,” I opined, “but even to the extent that my attraction to you is physical, you have a tremendous amount of control over that as a mage. I suspect we’ll both want to let ourselves go some physically as we age to better blend into society, but I’m pretty sure I’ll still think of you as sexy in your middle age. Thompson’s toenails, I don’t need to guess! Your mother is in fact a sexy woman.”
“I’m glad you think so,” she replied with what I took to be complete sincerity.
“You aren’t threatened by it?” I asked.
“No,” was all she said.
I decided she had more thoughts on that subject, but I wasn’t going to try prying them out of her. Instead, I continued my line of thought. “I’ll bet old Mr. Johannsen still thought his little Annie was sexy, even right up to the end.”
“I suppose we should talk about you sleeping with a strange woman last night, shouldn’t we?” she asked with a mock pout in her tone.
“Not to digress, but I did find Ann sexy in some sense. I wasn’t itching to bang her or anything, but she’s in shape, healthy for her age, vital, happy… These are key elements of personal beauty, Kaitlyn. Why would they be out of reach for you?” When she didn’t answer, I continued, “I can totally see us in our seventies, me waking you with those same words, ‘Good morning, beautiful.’”
Kaitlyn sighed with a measure of contentment and snuggled back into me. I squeezed her in reply, and we lay there enjoying the minutes left until the alarm she’d set would go off. She had shopping to do today and appointments to keep, so I treasured our remaining moments together.
Most of the household got dressed shortly after our fully-nude breakfast, variously citing the after-Christmas sales, traditional visits to friends, and for Vin and Jess, a visit to the local dinosaur a museum.
In my decreed nude state, I wouldn’t be participating in any of these activities, which was fine with me: I’m not much of a shopper, most of my friends close enough for me to want to visit them were already here, and I’d already been to the dinosaur museum. I’d repeatedly tried and failed to get some reading done in these past few days, so I was looking forward to some alone time.
What surprised me is that Mary also said she’d be staying home today. “I didn’t get my massage yesterday, so you all go off without me, okay?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Kaitlyn gets back? A four-handed massage is not to be missed,” I told her, trying to regain my alone time.
“Oh, I’m definitely sure. You’ll do just fine,” Mary told me in the no-nonsense-accepted tone I’d learned to associate with Kaitlyn.
I managed not to sigh with exasperation. I’d put myself on the hook for it when I made up the gift certificates, and I knew I’d enjoy giving her the massage, but it was looking like my reading would be put off once again. Ah, well. I began setting up the massage table in the living room, trying to keep out of the way of the bustle of people getting ready and leaving for their after-Christmas activities.
I’d about finished getting set up when the last of the family left, sending another whoosh of cold winter air over my nude body as they cycled through the front doorway.
Mary walked up to me then, carrying a piece of paper in her hand. I guessed it was the massage certificate I’d slipped into her Christmas stocking a few nights ago.
I asked her, “You about ready for your massage, Mary? I am.”
Wordlessly, she handed me the piece of paper.
It was indeed a home-printed certificate, but it was not the one I’d made!
This one read:
This Certificate good for Two Hours of Devindra Bhat’s Time
to be used as specified by the recipient, Mary O’Kieran Gutierrez.Expires December 28.
Signed, Kaitlyn Amber Gutierrez and Ramón Juan Fuentes y Gutierrez.
I recognized Kaitlyn’s signature, and Ramón’s was clearly legible, not the scrawl affected by so many. “I was not consulted on this,” I replied lamely.
“Are you disputing your wife’s right to assign your time?” Mary challenged with a dangerous-looking glint in her eye.
I thought about it, and within reason, I decided that she did indeed have some say in that. “No, I suppose not,” I replied. “So, how did you want to spend this gift of time? Not on massage, I’m guessing.”
She just caught my hand and led me into her bedroom. There, she lay on the bed, still naked from her morning shower, spread her legs, and simply said, “Do me, Davie.”
I now recalled what I’d told her after our first and only coupling: “You three work it out amongst yourselves.” Apparently Mary had asked them for another slice of chocolate cake for Christmas, and they had indeed worked it out. I decided I had legitimate orders, blessed by Kaitlyn and Ramón, so I put a gentle smile on and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
As we lay sweating side by side after our first coupling of the session this morning, my ears ringing a bit with her shouts, she splayed on her back, me on my side, one hand gently stroking one of her large matronly breasts, I told her, “They call this Boxing Day,” apropos of absolutely nothing, my mind drifting in a postcoital haze.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“I never understood why they call it that. Something to do with Christmas gifts, I guess?”
“No, my boy, it’s because on this day you help me to pack my box!” she replied with a naughty chortle.
I snickered along with her. “So what you’re telling me is, you want me to put something in your box, and then take it out of your box, and put it back in, and…?”
“Yes, exactly,” she interrupted, “and I hope you’ll be ready again soon! I’ve still got most of my two hours left, and I don’t want to spend it all waiting on your refractory period.”
For a male mage, that’s optional in a strict sense. I’d just been waiting for her to signal her readiness to continue, so I took that as my cue and pushed a little magic down the ol’ rod, perking it right back up. “Ready when you are, certificate holder Mary,” I replied, making it a kind of title.
She said no more, just climbed atop me and went right back to enjoying her slice of chocolate cake.
It was past ten, well beyond the two hours promised her when Mary finally said, “That’s it! Enough! I’m sated.” We’d kept going anyway since we hadn’t heard any cars drive up yet.
“Think that’ll keep you for another year?” I teased.
“A year‽ I’m not waiting that long!” she replied in mock outrage. “I expect you’ll be busy on Valentine’s Day, but then there’s Mother’s Day, and our nudist picnic anniversary on the Fourth of July, and then my birthday…”
I laughed and repeated my will in the matter, “All right, all right; you three work it out, okay?”
“You’ve got it. Now how about a shower and then that massage?” She forestalled my objection, “On the outside this time!”
I climbed over her, slipped off her side of the bed, picked her up in my arms with a surge of fortifying Gaia power, and carried her into the master bathroom. I set her gently on her feet and followed her into the shower. She turned the shower head away from us so we could soap up and stay that way. Once we were all slippery, she turned to face away from me, bracing her feet in the lower corners of the shower stall, her hands gripping the built-in shelf on the wall opposite, inviting me inward.
In that position, I once again saw her faded and misshapen butterfly tattoo, high on one butt cheek. “Mary,” I said just loudly enough to be heard over the shower spray’s white noise, “you weren’t very happy with this tattoo when we first saw it, back on the 4th of July. I could get rid of it, if you wanted.”
She turned her head to look at me over her shoulder and said, “You could?”
“Yup; quickly and painlessly, in fact. Just say the word.”
“Do it,” she said.
I concentrated my magic on her bared buttock, the shower water not interfering at all, the plastic walls simply requiring me to keep my working tight in on her body, which I wanted to do anyway. I easily found the pigments injected below her skin by the tattoo needle and extracted them through her pores, the ink coming to the surface, mixing with the soap. I rubbed my hand over the soft buttock, cleaning away a decades-old embarrassment. “It’s gone, Mary.”`
“It’s weird, but that somehow feels even better than knowing you cured my cancer. It’s vain, but… Well, thank you, Davie. It’s a lovely extra Christmas present.”
I kissed her on the cheek, and she said, “Now for dessert.”
I took the hint and got to whipping up a quick Christmas cream pie.
While Mary was toweling off in front of the dressing mirror, admiring her newly cleared butt-cheek, I wrapped her up in a hug, lifted her once again, and carried her to the waiting massage table, employing it for its designed purpose.
While I worked, Mary said, “You need to tell me about that pancreatic cancer.”
“Ah, that,” I replied.
“Yeah, that,” she nodded. “Tell me everything, all of what you couldn’t say in front of the rest of the family.”
So, I told her the whole story, about finding it, about how Kaitlyn and I had previously decided to handle such cases, about how we’d used a much simpler form of mage communication to decide on the plan of action, everything.
“Like an ice cube under a blowtorch,” she repeated when I got to that point in the story.
“Yup,” I agreed. “Perhaps someday I’ll get enough skill and refinement that I won’t have to use such brute force to solve such problems, but from the fact that you requested this gift from Kaitlyn and Ramón, I’m guessing you didn’t find my novice technique too onerous.”
Mary just sighed contentedly and let me get back to work.
Some time later, she did speak again. “It’s got to be getting close to lunch time. Ramón and the kids will surely be coming back soon.”
I looked over at the nearest clock and said, “Yeah, it’s about eleven thirty.”
The two of us got about preparing lunch. We were still nude in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on it when the first of the returning family drove up, so I began to set the table. It turned out to be Miguel, Carmen, and Ramón, who’d gone out as a group.
“You two didn’t just have an hours long massage, did you?” asked Carmen at one point.
“No, we chatted some,” Mary replied to her daughter-in-law.
“What about?”
“She told me about Boxing Day,” I replied with a secret smile at Mary.
“Is that all‽” Carmen demanded incredulously.
“Well, we chatted in quite a lot of detail about that cancerous growth I fixed, the one I told you all about the night we arrived.”
“Oh,” Carmen said, her face falling. “Sounds depressing. I think you’d have had more fun coming with us,” Carmen opined.
I replied, “I found it relaxing, but then, I’m an introvert.”
“Yes, Davie, I’m feeling extremely relaxed myself,” Mary said with a sigh.
I saw Ramón compress his lips into a small smile. When I glanced his way, he gave me a quick wink, and I returned a slight nod and a small smile of my own.
“I’d better go get dressed. Lunch is about ready,” Mary added, cutting off further speculations on what we’d done for most of four hours alone together.
Kaitlyn and I returned to her old bedroom after lunch, she still dressed, me still not. I’d picked up one of the books I was trying to get into during this vacation when she asked, “Did you two have a nice time together?”
“Yeah, I think she really got full value from that certificate,” I replied with a small smile.
“Should we have told you about it?” she asked.
I’d been thinking about this during lunch, so I had my reply ready to hand. “I was certainly surprised when she gave it to me, and it was a good surprise, so it falls under the Santa Rule.”
“Does that mean we can give her more certificates, then?”
“She certainly wants them,” I replied. “She half-seriously tried to set up several more sessions over the coming year!”
“And how about you? Do you want us to give you to her? How much is too much?”
I thought about that some. “Somewhere well shy of where I become a bone of contention, I suppose.”
“Yeah, me and my mom, fighting over your bone!” she giggled.
“You know me, I can keep up, and I certainly enjoy the, ah, work…”
“I’ll just bet you do!” she interrupted.
“Shush,” I told her. “No, what’s most important is the net increase in happiness, that’s all.”
“You’ve got it, babe. We’ll be careful,” she promised.
We fell silent at that, and I finally got some reading time in!
Perhaps an hour later, Allison poked her head in the bedroom doorway, greeting us, “Hey, you two.”
“Where’ve you been?” Kaitlyn asked. We hadn’t seen her since the family had gone off in their separate directions this morning. Allison had gone off alone, I remembered.
“I, ah, um…” Allison began, then sighed and said, “Joss’ dorm.”
“Lemme guess, you closed the door and lay on his bed to enjoy a nice lunch of summer sausage and cucumber on baguettes, with bananas for desert?”
Allison raised her fist and looked about to pronounce some doom on her sister but thought better of it, shaking her head rapidly to dispel the notion. “You two’ve got visitors. It’s that Jasper guy from the wedding and your old boss, Sherry.” She looked at me in particular and said, “Maybe you want to get dressed, Dave-O?”
I decided not to reject the nickname I’d apparently acquired, replying, “No, Allison, I think they’re half expecting me to come out like this. C’mon, Kaitlyn, let’s go be companionable again.”
“Should I peel?” she offered. As I was internally debating, she said, “No, never mind. Of course I should.” She bared herself with no more ceremony than preparing for a shower. It was the social thing to do, after all.
On emerging into the living room behind Allison, our escort, I was once again greeted by Poulsen’s baritone, “Ah, it is my favorite nudists once again. How’re you two doing?”
Jasper Poulsen is a city police officer, so he’s the most by-the-book guy I know, though he has certain libertarian tendencies that make for a productive working relationship. We thought of him as our “controller” in a loose sort of way: he called on us to help him with his work occasionally when mundane means wouldn’t work. We agreed in part from a sense of duty to the community, but pure self-interest would have sufficed: we didn’t want the problems he called us in to help him with to continue, either.
I’m uncertain how much leeway he gave us because of this help, and I wasn’t going to come out and just ask him.
Poulsen’s family is largely Scandinavian, so he’s slim and tall — an inch taller than my six-one — with flaxen hair and pale eyes. He had the cop mien down pat. Poulsen in a word? Watchful.
I’d been quite wary of him to begin with, but we’d built up a measure of trust, to the point that I considered him a friend. I therefore replied, “We’re doing well, Jasper, thanks.”
Poulsen doesn’t much like his given name, to the point that most people don’t even know what it is. He’s just “Poulsen” to most people, “Officer Poulsen” when he’s working. I considered it an honor that we were one of the few he’d allowed to know this; a greater one that we were allowed to address him with it.
One of the incidents he’d been involved with last year got him hooked up with Kaitlyn’s ex-boss Sherry Richardson, from the BLM. She was about the exact opposite of Jasper in every way: dark hair and eyes, a bit shorter than Kaitlyn’s five-two, and pleasantly rounded in a healthy sort of way.
We chatted with them for a few minutes, catching up, Jasper telling me how it’s gotten quiet around town without me stirring things up, and Sherry telling Kaitlyn that she’s been missing her in the office.
“So, how’s massage school going?” Sherry asked Kaitlyn.
“How about we just show you?” my wife replied quickly. “We brought all of our stuff.” She then went on to tell them about the massage gift certificates.
“Sounds like you two don’t understand the ‘vacation’ concept,” Sherry replied wryly.
Kaitlyn said, “Naw, it’s been fun, and anyway, we just delivered the last of them this morning. We’re free again.”
“How about it, Jazz?” asked Sherry.
Jasper raised an eyebrow at me in a “You will never use that nickname with me ever; are we absolutely five-by-five crystal clear on this?” way before answering his girlfriend, “If you want.”
“I most definitely do,” she informed him. “I wimped out on asking for a massage back at the wedding, and I’m not letting another opportunity slip through my fingers. Besides, she offered to do it.” Turning to her ex-employee, Sherry said, “So, how do you two want us?”
“Starkers, right here, right now,” Kaitlyn replied quickly. “C’mon everyone, clear out!” she told the rest of her family. “Private massage time.”
“We can drape you, if you want,” I offered diffidently.
“I don’t need it if you don’t need it,” Sherry replied, and Jasper didn’t offer any objection of his own.
I decided right there that those two had a pretty good chance at being a long-term couple. Jasper had gotten a minister’s license to officiate first at his sister’s wedding and then at ours; I wondered if I should look into getting my own license to return the favor? I could style myself the High Priest of Gaia for their eventual wedding.
An hour later, Sherry and Jasper were just as slackly relaxed as all of our prior clients.
“I wonder if we can budget some of this for the office through BLM?” slurred Sherry as we were cleaning things up, waiting for them to rouse themselves.
“I know someone on the city council,” said Jasper. “I figure we could attach it to the health plan for the officers. A bunch of ’em are on PT already for one reason or another. This’d probably be cheaper all around.”
Deciding that this could be a very good thing, I said, “Yeah, I think we could cut a deal with the city. You get to work on that; we’ll be graduating mid-spring.”
“And we’ll be even better come the day!” added Kaitlyn.
“I wish I could do this for you, Sherry,” Jasper replied wistfully.
“I don’t see why you can’t,” I told him. “It’s just a skill, like any other.” Then, getting a thought, I turned to my wife and said, “Hey, you up to give some lessons?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Swap places, be their practice dummies,” I proposed.
Kaitlyn nodded to me in willing acceptance of this plan, but Officer Poulsen began, “Oh, I couldn’t…”
Anticipating the reason for this straitlaced man’s objection, I said, “I’m not proposing that you massage me, Officer. You’ll be doing Kaitlyn.”
He turned bright red at that and began stammering, “O-oh, n-n-no, I c-c-couldn’t!”
“If it means you can get the skill to massage me anywhere near this good, you certainly can, Jazz!” Sherry told her boyfriend. “Besides, I’m not shy about touching Davie!” She reached over and stroked up my thigh and cupped a buttock, squeezing it. “C’mon, Jazz,” she wheedled. “I want this!”
Jasper sighed and mastered his emotions, then said, “Of course, I’m being selfish. I’m sorry, love; of course you can have this.”
“Oh, don’t sound so stoic!” she scolded him with a smile on her face. “You’re going to enjoy this plenty!”
He just sighed and got up wordlessly, exchanging positions with Kaitlyn as I did with Sherry.
From our prone positions, we began to instruct them as well as we could, working with what we could feel rather than what we could see. The two were pretty ham-handed, but we didn’t begrudge them this; it was their first lesson, after all. We didn’t have to worry about them messing us up physically; we could magically sort out any problems they caused later.
I noticed that Jasper had gone from extremely relaxed at the end of his massage to bowsprit-to-the-wind, and he stayed that way. I just grinned knowingly at Kaitlyn, and she winked back, our tables side-by-side.
Shortly after that exchange, we flipped over and resumed the instruction. Now that I was looking up at my masseuse-in-training, I saw that Sherry was looking rather hungrily down at me, her middle-aged breasts dangling well into reach, though I kept myself flaccid, hands at my side.
To the side, I noticed Jasper’s cock now bobbing in the air occasionally.
Kaitlyn turned to face her ex-boss, asking, “Sherry, can I take care of this little problem? My student is having trouble concentrating.”
She gave a belly laugh, saying, “Go right on ahead.”
Kaitlyn smeared one hand over her front to gather up a good slick of massage oil, reached out, grabbed Jasper’s cock without a by-your-leave, then began stroking it gently.
Jasper’s eyes closed in delight, then snapped open to look at his girlfriend.
As he was about to speak, Sherry said, “G’wan, you know you need it. She’s right, you’re distracted.”
His eyes closed again, and I resumed instructing Sherry while we listened to her boyfriend groan and pant.
Kaitlyn only had to lube her hand back up once more before he orgasmed hugely, sending three long ropes across Kaitlyn, across me, and hitting Sherry who happened to be opposite him on the far side of my table at the time. She caught most of it on her lower belly and upper thigh.
I just started laughing, setting off a chain reaction through the other three.
“Now if we’re all ready to resume the lessons…?” Kaitlyn replied with faux asperity.