Multicultural Holiday Romance Box Set Read online

  Books can hide in offices, but books are the most impersonal of gifts. I was restricted, restrained, by our wretched situation, and it grated on my nerves every time Winston said, “I don’t need things; I have you. You give me all I want.”

  And it was true, of course, that he could afford to buy himself anything he desired, but that was hardly the point.

  “I want to be able to give you something,” I told him. “Some little object that you can look at and, when you do, your heart is warmed. You’ll see it on your desk or your bookshelf and think, ‘Ah yes, that was a gift from ma belle Giselle.’”

  Winston scratched the dark hairs of his chin in contemplation. He was assessing me, of course. “You’re concerned I don’t spend enough time thinking about you, and, by extension, that I don’t care for you. Is that it?”

  I pouted, hoping there was a lingering tease to my voice. “You know, I’d like to chastise you for psychoanalysing me, but how can I when you’re always right?”

  He placated me by saying, “I’m just compensating for all the years before I knew you, when I got pretty much everything wrong.”

  “That’s bullshit. You’ve always been brilliant.”

  “How would you know?” he taunted.

  “I’ve read your thesis. You wrote that in your youth, and you were brilliant even then.” I pushed closed the heavy wooden door of his office, flipping the latch to lock us in. With a look of innocent coquetry, I asked, “Do you want me?”

  Without saying anything, without even appearing terribly interested, Winston sat down in his big leather armchair. My lover was incredibly aloof at times, and perhaps I was drawn to that. It meant that every time he took a moment to focus his full attention on me, I felt as though I had accomplished a great feat. I always did appreciate a challenge.

  I flicked the light switch and the room became very dark. Mid-winter, Canadian nights begin even before the day is out. I made my way over, to straddle him in his chair.

  “Close the blinds,” he pre-empted.

  Did it matter, with the lights already off, if the blinds were closed or not?

  But it was not for me to judge Winston’s desire for discretion. After all, I was not the married one. I closed the blinds and made my cautious return to him in pitch blackness.

  Leaning into Winston’s hard body, I kissed the aromatic softness of his left cheek, lingering close. His stoicism made me wild with desire. I kissed his right cheek, breathing heavily against his flesh. He made no sound, no motion.

  When I leaned in to kiss his lips, Winston caught my head in his hands. In a cavernous whisper, he told me, “You’ve left my office too many times with your lips raw and red. People will catch on.” It could easily have shattered my heart when he said, “I’m not going to kiss you today.”

  But it didn’t. It was incredibly arousing, knowing that in a moment Winston would flip me around and press my front against volumes and papers on his solid desk. With none of the caring preliminaries, he would toss my skirt up over my ass and fuck me in absolute darkness.

  On the steps of Victoria College, after saying goodnight, I sat under those words carved in stone: ‘The truth shall set you free.’ In the back of my Anthropology notebook, I wrote down the feelings of mad exhilaration I’d experienced, being fucked like that, furtively, in the dark.

  Later, it became this story:

  The Assistant

  “It’s like a bomb shelter down here,” Cheri teased as she led Marc down the dizzying staircase. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic,”

  Small Properties Storage was in the sub-basement, contained on every side—ceiling, walls and floor—by thick concrete. Truth be told, at home she was a little bashful, but Cheri knew she could scream bloody murder down here and nobody would ever know. What better excuse to show the new props assistant around?

  “Wow,” Marc marvelled, jaw hanging open as he took in the small space crammed to the rafters with shelving and boxes. “I pictured it bigger.”

  Cheri chuckled to herself, closing the steel door behind them. The heavy-duty steamer trunk was already in place, so close she’d only have to trip on her shoelace to be right on top of it. Go-time, now or never, dive right in…

  Grabbing hold of Marc, she flipped off the light and the dusty space went pitch black.

  “Cheri?”

  His cock was stiff when she found it. Cheri pumped, Marc yelped. That hot hardness surged in her hands as she persuaded it to come out and play.

  “Oh yeah…”

  “Do you want me?” Cheri offered, falling to her hands and knees on the trunk.

  “Oh yeah…”

  Blindly, he tossed her skirt up, rubbing his warm hands across her luscious ass. Her thong was already moist when he pulled it down. Who needs light? A cock can find a pussy in the dark.

  He grasped her hips as he thrust his thick shaft into the hot wetness of her body. She pushed back against him until he was so deep inside she couldn’t contain herself. It would all come out down here. Nobody would ever know.

  As he fucked her from behind, every naughty word she’d ever wanted to shout boiled to the surface. The hot girth of his shaft ran through her, and they all came spilling out.

  “Fuck, yeah! I want you to pump me so full of cum…”

  * * * *

  “Have you walked down Queen’s Park in the last two weeks?” Winston asked me as Christmas closed in with no gifts in sight.

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Put your coat on,” he instructed me. “We’re going for a stroll.”

  “Why? What’s there?” I asked, feeling a little giddy. I knew it would have something to do with my gift. It was that time of year. Even if we don’t want to, we all become a little gift-oriented.

  Winston peered at me with a mocking smirk. In the deep bellowing tone only ever used to tease me, he repeated, “Put your coat on, Giselle.”

  I giggled, hopping up on his desk and shuffling my feet in the air. Like a petulant child, I folded my arms across my chest and rebuked him. “No! I won’t put on my coat until you tell me where we’re going.”

  When I tried, I could be quite adorable. I thought so, at least. Winston pulled my grey jacket down from the hook behind the door and hung it over my head. He had his playful moods too. “We’re going.”

  “But where?” I asked, slipping my arms into the jacket.

  He’d already opened his office door, but he closed it again to kiss me sweetly on the lips. Tracing his thumb down my nose and along my cheek, he said, “You are very precious to me.”

  Blushing, I hid my small face in the pinky-brown palm of his large hand, kissing it. In that moment, I wondered when my Winston had last slept with his wife. I hated when my mind made me think such things. Utter nuisance. Brains were always causing torments of various kinds.

  We left his office and set out through the snow, but I went very quiet for a time. I’m sure Winston noticed, but he made no mention of it.

  He was too brilliant. Why waste so much of his valuable time with me?

  Winter had the power to make even a dirty city beautiful. The snow covered a multitude of human sins. I could simply fall in it, lay in the snow and close my eyes. The winter could turn me blue and cover me over, erase my transgressions, and I would never again be a bother to anyone.

  As I cast my silent gaze across the park, Winston slipped his gloved fingers through mine. My heart thumped wildly in my chest, and I don’t think I concealed it very well.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “What is what?”

  “You’re looking at me with alarm. Or trepidation, perhaps? I’m wondering what I’ve done wrong.”

  “Oh, no, nothing,” I replied with a touched smile. “It’s just… do you realize that you’ve never held my hand before?”

  He smiled too, looking forward. “There is it! Your Christmas gift.”

  Have you ever noticed that you can find your own name in two seconds, even if it appears in a l
ist with hundreds of others? It works the same way with a cityscape. If one’s name appears anywhere in the terrain of a city, one can zero in on it in no time.

  Splashed across the sidewall of the opera house was my name. Giselle.

  “What is…” I stammered, marvelling at the huge poster on the building down the block. “What is it for?”

  “The ballet, of course,” Winston replied.

  “Oh…”

  I admit, I was disappointed. In my state of friendly narcissism, I thought it might actually have something to do with me. I would never have admitted that to Winston, of course. I feel silly telling you even now, so many years later. Isn’t it funny how we see things outside in the world and naturally think they are somehow inspired by us?

  “There’s a ballet called Giselle?” I asked to cover my embarrassment.

  Winston gazed at me with an air of disbelief. “You’ve never seen it?”

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” I claimed, though I’m not certain that was the precise truth. One exaggerates, sometimes, for effect…

  It wasn’t often Winston laughed, but when he did, it was an experience. His full pink lips parted to reveal perfect white teeth. His dark eyes shone. His deep chuckle reverberated in my core, though we were connected only where our fingers touched. He bent down to kiss me and, when he set his hand in the dip of my lower back, my whole body warmed to ward off winter’s chill.

  From the breast pocket of his cashmere overcoat, Winston slid an envelope, which he placed in my gloved hand. Inside there was no greeting card—it would never cross his mind to purchase something so trite—but a pair of box tickets to the ballet Giselle.

  My excitement was guarded, and I’ll tell you why: for my birthday, Winston had given me tickets to a little play down at Harbourfront. I was over the moon, until he interrupted my joy to mention that he wouldn’t be accompanying me. The second ticket was for a friend, or whomever I cared to bring along. When my heart was done feeling like it had been trampled into the mud by angry groundhogs, I grew bitter with rage. What a tease of a gift! The one thing I wanted most was the one thing I could never have: time together. I didn’t want to ask if he’d done the same thing all over again. It really is amazing how even very brilliant people have trouble learning from their mistakes, particularly where relationships are concerned.

  “I’d like to take you, if you’ll allow me,” Winston said, assuaging my fears and melting my winter heart. Gazing up at the large poster, he continued, “It would be my pleasure to share with you a salubrious meal somewhere atmospheric. I have a place in mind.”

  I was reeling with anticipation, like he’d asked me to marry him or something. Really quite embarrassing, when I look back on it, but considering our history, it made some sense to revel in the idea of simply going out. We’d fucked like bunnies, but we’d never been on a date. We’d screwed our little hearts out, but we had never once eaten a meal together or gone to the movies or the theatre or the opera…or the ballet…

  I never did ask how he managed to steal away for the evening. As long as he could escort me to dinner in that debonair manner so befitting of a strong black man, what else mattered? We sat, gazing out into the snow, warmed by the wood-fire oven that toasted other people’s authentic thin-crust pizzas while I enjoyed my wild mushroom and ricotta ravioli.

  “I came to ballet rather late in life,” Winston told me, teasing a section of tender pink salmon from his filet.

  “I’ve never been before,” I admitted. “This is my first time.”

  Winston offered a throaty chuckle.

  “Your first time…?” he asked salaciously.

  “Indeed,” I replied with a keen grin. “You’ll have to guide me. Lead me by the hand. And gently, gently, all the way.”

  A dimple appeared beside Winston’s full pink lips. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a fan of ‘gentle.’ I always thought you preferred a more heavy-handed approach.”

  “Only when the hand is yours,” I assured him.

  For a moment, he simply looked at me, eyes sparkling.

  The Plotline

  Giselle, the innocent. Giselle, the naïve. Giselle, the young village maiden, falls deeply in love with a handsome young peasant known as Loys.

  “To display her fondness, a girl generally shows a man certain affections,” Loys began. “Unless, of course, you are not so in love as you claim to be.”

  “Oh, I am! I love you as the moon loves the sun: longingly, from afar!”

  “Perhaps you would like to… get a little closer?”

  It was a statement more than a question, though what more could she ask than Loys’ ardour? When he kissed her palms, her knees went weak. When he kissed her neck, she collapsed into his strong chest. When he kissed her lips, she kissed him back.

  Though she was new to the art of love, intuition and lust led the way. His hands ran the length of her thighs while he buried his face in her bodice. As his lips reached her tender nipples, she let out a cry so pleasured he had to muffle it with her long flowing hair.

  He opened her moist cunt with his fingers. Still sucking her breasts, he thrust into her softness, clutching her trembling body close. The motion became so fierce he lifted her feet clear off the ground. As he did, her bones became jelly. She shrieked into her own hair.

  The experience was far greater than the other girls claimed. They were unlucky, not to have lovers so pure as Loys.

  But nothing gold can stay, and Giselle soon discovered Loys was in fact a nobleman called Albrecht playing at peasants for a lark. Her lover was engaged to marry the daughter of a Duke.

  How could he be so callous? Loys, Albrecht, whatever his name was… how could anybody be so deceitful? The pain was never-ending. Giselle grew inconsolable until, in her immense grief, she died of a broken heart.

  So ends Act One.

  * * * *

  “What do you think so far?” Hope beamed from behind Winston’s academic glasses.

  “It’s spectacular. Stunning. The costumes, the dance…” I wasn’t sure how to gush further, knowing pitifully little about ballet. “I love it.”

  “I thought you might.” He nodded. “I’m glad I managed to convince Gregory to push it through.”

  “Gregory?”

  “The ballet’s artistic director. Have I never mentioned him? He’s a close friend. At any rate, not long after I met you—before anything had begun to blossom with us—I was discussing your dilemma with Gregory…”

  “My dilemma?” I asked in disbelief. Winston had discussed me with the director of this prestigious ballet company? The very idea made my insides bubble with giddiness.

  “Yes, I mentioned what you told me early on about your name.”

  “My name?”

  “Giselle, the French Bitch,” he elucidated.

  “Ahhhh…”

  “And I proposed, even though it was late in the planning stage, that Gregory mount a production of Giselle around the holiday season. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed to it. I knew even then—even before we had a relationship to speak of—that I wanted to bring you here, to this ballet, so you could see there are options for you beyond Giselle, the French Bitch. Here we have Giselle, the heart-broken peasant girl. No matter how you come across to the world, no matter how you portray yourself to other people, I think this ballet’s Giselle is more aligned with who you really are.”

  At that point, Winston stopped talking to kiss me on my cheeks, because I had been moved to tears.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as the lights went down. “Nobody’s ever mounted a ballet in my honour before.”

  As the orchestra started up again and the dancers took their places, I knew what precious gift I could give Winston: something he would value, something I had created, and yet something so unimposing it might even slip unnoticed into a bookcase.

  After the performance, after Winston brought me home and put me to bed—at length—I began work on the small compilation of flash sto
ries I’ve shared with you today. It may not be a ballet, but it’s what I myself could create. All are theatrically-themed, as you may have noticed.

  If you know me, know me personally and know me well, you are aware of how my love affair with Winston progressed, and what ultimately it yielded. Now I will reveal to you the final story—the truest one of all—which ended the collection, as it ends my holiday tale.