by Alison Tyler
I decided right then.
I was going home for Christmas.
I hadn’t seen my folks since summer, and though my brother and sister still lived in our hometown, I knew my parents would like to see us all there. This year, I didn’t have a boyfriend to argue with over where we’d spend the holidays or what we’d do, so it was easy to plan my small-town Christmas with the family.
Shopping was almost fun, making a list and checking it not twice but three times, spending a bit too much. But I was single without kids. I packed the trunk of my car with boxes wrapped in red, green, and gold. Then I drove from the wet green to white, from the coast and into the mountains. Just me, the road, and music.There was no one to argue with over the CDs, and no one to complain if I felt like singing along. Loudly. I came out of the low, gray clouds and into the still blue and white of winter. Winter, the way it’s supposed to be. Each curve of the highway brought a new postcard-perfect scene, and I was lucky with the weather, passing through only an hour or so of falling snow. The highway was open all the way, vehicles ahead sweeping the roads clear.
I slept that night in my old room, the road curving behind my closed eyes. Now, it was less my childhood haven and more my mother’s crafts-and-computer room. But my old bed was still there, and the same pink and white lamp cast a warm and familiar light.
It was good to be back, to see my family again, to eat at the same old kitchen table, to hear the latest gossip on the neighbors and the people I’d gone to school with.
After dinner on my second day in town, I did the dishes and then went for a walk. The snow was crunchy, like clean, white linen, reflecting light from the moon and the streetlights. It was quiet, and there was hardly any traffic. You don’t appreciate a small town until you live in the edgy, anonymous city.
It was more than just an evening walk—I was on my way to the liquor store.The folks usually don’t stock anything stronger than orange juice. I’d forgotten to bring anything with me and planned to pick up some rum and rye. I’d discreetly keep it in my room, and it would feel pleasantly naughty to have my evening tipple. There’s nothing like thinking that you’re breaking a taboo to make things more fun.
I enjoyed the walk, bundled up against the cold. The liquor store was still open, its windows adorned with garlands. I was hesitating over Gibson’s Finest versus Seagram’s, when I looked up, stopped breathing, and fell back in time.
High school. Ten... no, fifteen years ago.
A long time.
I was a teenager again, trying not to gawk at the object of my girlish desire, yet unable to look away. I was sixteen, the years gone like October’s leaves, staring at a boy I had a crush on. A crush? It felt like True Love, and there’s no desire more painful or poignant than the unrequited kind. The boy? Oh, he was cute, smart, and athletic, too. He had a mischievous grin and brown hair, and his dad was a lawyer. The boy was popular but still a nice guy. Nice guys seemed rare in the sometimes-vicious world of adolescence. He was dreamy in eleventh grade. I adored him.
I closed my eyes quickly, then opened them again. Yes. Tom Donnelly. Right there in the hometown liquor store. All grown up.
And looking as good as ever.
The years since I trailed him in the high school halls, just happening to be where he was, had been kind to him. Back then, he didn’t know I existed. I noticed everything about him (and wrote about it obsessively in my diary), but I was invisible to him. He was a nice guy, and if he didn’t take in the quiet girl with the brown hair and glasses, he still smiled when I squeaked “Hi” to him and didn’t seem to notice I spent far too much time in the bleachers of the gym, pretending to study but really studying him. In the cafeteria, I’d hear only his voice, and sigh when he would finish lunch with his friends and leave. I was an awkward bundle of mute longing amid the raucous shouts and hoots.All those teenage hormones, cooped up in the same big room during long winter lunch hours.
It seemed like just last week.
I remember how a miasma of grease from the French fries hung in the air, along with whatever was served the day before, adding to the ghost of all lunches past. I remember watching Tom, yearning for him, vividly imagining ridiculous scenarios that would bring him to the realization that I was his True Love.There were other scenarios, too, ones as steamy as my virginal little brain could conjure. I remember how those feelings confused me and put my body in turmoil, and just how fierce that longing was.
Nothing since then has been like that.
We actually became friends his last year of high school. I followed him into auditions for the school musical, trying out just to be near him, and got a small part. I didn’t have to sing or dance much, but there were agonizingly sweet hours of rehearsal with the cast. Just friends, for he always had a girlfriend, but it was still infinitely better than staring at him from the bleachers or across the cafeteria.
We lost touch after high school. He graduated, leaving me with a nice enough boyfriend of my own. I went to the coast for university, leaving both my boyfriend and small-town life behind. Tom went north to work. And though our parents stayed in town, we hadn’t met up again. Not before that night in the liquor store.
Tom. I stared at him for a minute, clutching my choice (I’d decided on Gibson’s) as he waffled between Okanogan whites.Watching him, I felt much the same as I had back then; only this time there was a low wave of wanting, a quickening awareness of the crevice and hollow between my thighs. I’d been cold but not anymore. And now, I knew what those feelings meant, even if the strength of the reaction caught me off guard. Maybe because it had been a while since I’d had a man. A lot of unspent arousal waited inside me.
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He did wear jeans, a shirt, and a winter jacket, with gloves poking out of the pockets like they were waving at me. Hi, Stephanie. An ordinary man but a good-looking one. Jesus. He still made my heart trip a quick pitter-patter like it did when I was sixteen. And now he made that sweet spot between my legs start to ache. It hummed a little song to my single self: too long, too long, girl, it’s been far too long...
That ache felt fine in a funny kind of way. It was good to feel desire again.
Tom looked up and glanced at me.Then he looked again, recognizing me.
Slowly, a grin spread over his face.
A half-hour later, we were still at the Tim Horton’s across the street, sitting in the bright and unromantic light, laughing until it hurt.We were both single, though Tom had a daughter from his now-over marriage.
“Thirteen!” I said, marveling. A teenage daughter.
Both of us were successful in our own ways. Both of us had been around a little, learned a lot. And both of us were home for Christmas with family.
And soon we were both tired of Tim Horton’s, with its uncomfortable seats and sparse retiree clientele. “Want another coffee?” Tom asked.
“No, thanks,” I said. I looked at my bottle in its brown paper bag.
He caught my glance and grinned. We’d clicked, from laughing hellos at the liquor store and, just as easily,Tom read my mind. “How about one to go, then? And we could...put a splash of what’s in our bottle in it. It’s too cold to walk, I’ll drive you home.”
I don’t know if it was the chill in the air—the sky was clear and black, and stars that I didn’t see in the city were flung across the heavens like spilled glitter. Or maybe it was the attraction that had waited, simmering, for more than fifteen years—but Tom didn’t take me home. And I didn’t ask him to. I’d called my mother from his cell phone, explaining that I’d run into an old friend, and not to worry. She sounded pleased.
Tom and I drove around town looking at the Christmas lights, sipping our drinks, the spiked coffee in my belly warming me deliciously. He drove slowly as we talked, revisiting all those silly things we’d done, learned, and remembered. I liked sitting in Tom’s truck with him, with no particular place to go, touring the landscape of our youth, softened by the mantle of snow, and twinkling everywhere w
ith a million lights.
We covered the town, and once again for good measure, then Tom headed up to the local cemetery, careful on the road. Had it been October, it would have been a delightfully spooky location, but in December, even the headstones were blanketed by white and lost their melancholy. Behind us, the streetlights faded, and ahead, the truck’s headlights shone on the white snow and black trees. He pulled off the road and put the truck in park.We sat there, the engine rumbling as he turned it on occasionally, keeping us warm. We looked at the lights of town below, watching the place where we’d grown up put itself to bed for the night.We drank our coffee, generously laced with my booze. It was so quiet.
“More?” I asked, the taste of whiskey and coffee on my tongue.
“Yeah,” Tom said.
A moment later, I put my cup on the dashboard, carefully. More. I wanted more. I turned to him and kissed him, and after a moment when I thought I’d made a horrible mistake, he kissed me back. Then we kissed, as if it had been scripted by someone who didn’t have the patience for three dates and building innuendo. I was only in town for a visit, and so was he.Why wait? We were both free.
We kissed until the windows of his truck steamed up and I couldn’t see the moon or the snow. All my unspent longing was afire. I wouldn’t tell him that he was making a dream come true for the girl I used to be. We kissed, slowly stoking the building heat between us, and soon my jacket was open and so was his. Then his hand slid over my breast in a caress, my nipple rising hard in return, even under three layers of clothes. Mine stroked his thigh, and his tongue set me ablaze. Tom was a good kisser.
“More?” Tom asked, at one point, our mouths swollen and tender from kissing. “Do you want more?”Always a nice guy, he was a gentleman now.
“Yes,” I said. Christmas was going to come early.
“Here?” he asked.
“I don’t care...” I was breathless from kissing. “I can’t take you back to my parents’ place... Besides, it’s like being back in high school.”
He grinned. “Getting a second chance at it?”
Second chances. Only now I knew what I was doing. We came together, kissing again, knowing it was going to go further, we just had to work out how to do it in Tom’s truck. All that unspent desire swept over me anew. I was wet just from kissing him. I wanted him to know it. I needed him to take me.
No more hesitation. My hand slid higher up his jeans to find his hardness, and he fumbled my sweater up. My nipples pressed against my bra, and he tugged the T-shirt I wore underneath out of my pants. His hand was warm, cupping my breast, and his tongue was wicked and knowing. I craved him. The moon slipped in and out of the bare trees like our hands did in each other’s loosened clothes.
Tom had a promisingly generous and hard bulge in his jeans. My fingers returned to it, slipping over it again and again. He got my sweater undone—oh, those maddening winter layers—and fumbled with my bra. If only I had known what the day would bring, I would have chosen something sexier. But you never know when luck’s going to turn like silver to gold.
The winter night drifted into scattered sensations of rising pleasure. The metal of his zipper, and his hand warm on my back, slipping the catch of my bra open. Clever Tom. Too horny to shiver, I was delighted by each layer he worked through. I arched forward, my breasts filling his hands. He cupped and squeezed, his mouth on mine, my tongue flickering against his, then parting from his mouth reluctantly. A sigh. His thumb slid over my hard nipples. I fought the snap of his jeans, finally getting it open. Tom let me take my time, as if to make sure it was what I really wanted.
It was.
I slid his zipper down over the eager ridge that tantalized me.Then I was undoing him at last, surprised by boxers, not briefs, and after all that work, his cock sprung out, silky and hard.
Oh, he was nice and big. Tom, at last...
I grasped him, squeezed, and caressed the swollen head, hoping I wasn’t hurting him. A groan of pleasure told me I wasn’t, answered by another surge of heat between my legs. Stroking him, skin hot with arousal, blood rushed, keeping us warm.
“This is what Tom’s cock feels like,” I thought. “Now I know, sixteen years later.”
The moon slipped away. Night was darker and everything was sensation that delighted me, from my bared nipples, my belly, to the hot nugget of want that was my clit. Finding our naked skin under all those winter layers was even more enticing. I kissed him while my greedy fingers couldn’t keep away from his cock. ”Touch me,” I demanded, and Tom obliged with more. He leaned in to suckle at my nipples, and I saw the bare, black trees through the condensation on the windows as his tongue darted circles around my nipples and rasped over the tops. The gravestones slumbered in the snow, and heat licked at my skin. My panties were damp and getting damper. Snow began to fall, flakes drifting to settle against the glass. Melting, just like me.
I wriggled around on the seat of his truck, as horny as I’d been at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, as Tom’s mouth moved back and forth on each breast. He had a trick or two, like taking my nipples gently between his teeth and then sliding his tongue slowly over the tops. It made me shudder with want. But I knew what to do with that need. I was slick and ready for him. Swirling desire intoxicated me, and I felt safe in his truck between the dead and the town.
His chest was hairy and pleasingly muscled. I shivered at last, and he fumbled with the key and turned the engine on again. Snow fell all around us. I was between worlds: the town below, the mountains behind us, and in the middle, Tom’s truck.The past and now. I didn’t need a future.
But I did need to taste his skin. The smooth swell of his cock brushed against my lips, and then my tongue. I gave him a promise: more. I slid my mouth down his shaft, bracing myself with my hands, bumping the steering wheel with my head. I laughed and heard Tom laugh, too. Then I really sucked him, feeling him grow bigger, harder, hearing his groans of pleasure. His hands were gentle on my head as I showed him what I’d learned in the last fifteen years. I was wetter. Hotter. How could a simple walk to the liquor store turn out like this? I sucked him, awkward and glorious,Tom’s fingers in my hair, then gentle against my neck.
I had to have him.
How the hell were we going to manage this? I pulled away from his cock, leaving it glistening from the wet caress of my mouth, thrusting upward, straining with desire. In the dim of winter night, it looked ready to explode.
I undid my own jeans, and my panties came down. They were white and plain. His hand cupped me, one finger slipped in, and he grunted at the slick wetness, the heat of me. I wasn’t cold at all. I wriggled my jeans down farther.
How? Tom knew. “Sit on me,” he said, his voice rough with need.
We would manage it. We had to. I squirmed out of my pants, kicking them off, crazy for it. “I hope the local cops aren’t patrolling up here,” I said.
“Be kind of embarrassing,” he agreed. “But worth it.”
Tom slid over to the middle of the seat. I put my knee over and straddled him, and bumped my head on the roof of the cab. His erect cock thrust up, touching my wet pussy.
Astride him, his thighs warm and muscled, I loved the way he looked with his shirt hanging open. I stroked his chest and played with his nipples like he had done to me. His cock pressed against me, insistent.
I wanted to slow down, to relish every second of it.Yet I couldn’t wait. Tom’s hands circled my waist, and my breasts were inches away from his mouth. I wanted him to suck them, and I needed to fuck him. I lifted, then found the swollen head of his cock, and caressed it with my wet, open sex. Slick lips kissed his flesh, then his prick parted them. He thrust his hips, pushing into me. I groaned, and sank down slowly, savoring every inch of his cock as it filled me up. I took him all the way in, then settled hard against him. I gasped in pleasure, squarely planted on his erection. I almost came.
I rocked on him, deliberately, clutching his shoulders, and shamelessly offered my ripe nipples to his mouth. Holly berri
es and cherries. He sucked them as I rode his cock, the center of everything, all I needed for Christmas. Then I was grinding faster against him, with no sweetness now, only the raw imperative to keep fucking his cock. My throbbing softness moved against his hardness, seeking the friction I needed. He was slick from me, but each stroke took me closer and closer to release.
Then I soared, right there in Tom’s truck, in the silent falling snow. My body clenched around his cock like a fist, the rhythm of coming like bells tolling to drown out the world. Pleasure so fierce I could turn Christmas into July. I sobbed something as bliss seized me—I don’t know what—and just let it engulf me.
Tom grabbed me and he bucked beneath my body, seizing his turn, taking me.
He fucked me from beneath, pumping up deliberately, then catching the urgency I’d felt.Then he was on the verge. I felt his intensity deepen, heard his cry, and saw his face change at the moment of release.
And it was good to feel his pleasure, with my body, with all the woman I was on that night and the girl I had been.The one who’d wanted him so badly all those years ago.
We’d fogged up the windows, and it must have been after midnight. Christmas Eve.
We dressed quickly, complicated tangles of clothes and laughing acrobatics in the front seat. We drank a final toast to Christmas wishes and the past years with another shot of whiskey.The coffee was long gone, but it didn’t matter.
