Chapter 72: Advent
The front door clicked shut behind him, sealing the cold night air outside. The hallway was warm, smelling of lemon polish and the faint, underlying scent of the Mulled Wine candle Margot had lit since October. He stood for a moment, listening. The soft hum of the washing machine came from the kitchen, along with the clink of pottery.
She was at the sink, her back to him, red curls tied up in a messy bun. She wore his old rugby shirt over her pyjama bottoms. The domestic normalcy of it was a sucker punch to the senses.
“You’re back,” she said, without turning. “Cup of tea?”
“I… yes. Please.”
He hung his coat, the movement automatic. He could still feel the ghost of Karen’s warmth on his hands, the deep, full ache in his own muscles. He walked into the kitchen. The Women’s Institute calendar hung on the fridge, its pages a chronicle of his year. November’s image of a heavily pregnant Karen, demurely holding a basket of apples over her swell, now felt like a personal, shared joke.
Margot turned, kettle in hand. Her eyes went immediately to his face, then traveled down his body, as if scanning for damage or data. Her gaze was bright, inquisitive, utterly devoid of jealousy. It was the look of a project manager reviewing a completed phase.
“Well?” she asked, a smile playing on her lips. “How was the harvest?”
The phrase, so close to Karen’s own, shattered his last fragile hold on the ordinary world. A sound escaped him, half-laugh, half-sigh. He slid into a chair at the kitchen table. “Successful. I think. She gave me a cupcake.”
Margot’s smile widened. “She’s always been a good baker.” She set a mug of tea in front of him. “And you? How are you?”
He looked into the steaming brown liquid. How was he? He had fucked a woman into a nest of cushions and then eaten a vanilla fairy cake. He had come inside her with his wife’s tacit blessing. The accountant in him tried to balance the ledger, but the columns were all wrong. The debits and credits were in a currency he didn’t understand.
“Quiet,” he said finally. It was the truest thing he could find.
Margot nodded, as if this was the expected answer. She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat, cradling her own mug. “Good. That’s good, Rupert. A clean finish.” She took a sip. “Ready for the finale?”
He looked up. “Finale?”
“December, silly.” She pushed her chair back with a scrape and went to the fridge. With a ceremonious flick, she turned the calendar to the last page.
December featured Libby. It was a Christmas-themed shot. She stood by a decorated tree, dressed only in strings of tasteful white fairy lights that wound around her torso and limbs, a sprig of mistletoe held playfully between her teeth. Her smile was wide and knowing. The gold star was fixed on the 24th. Christmas Eve.
“A special one,” Margot said, her finger tapping the star. “Libby’s been planning it for months. Very thematic.” She turned to him, her eyes gleaming with that familiar, terrifying mischief. “But it requires preparation. An Advent calendar of sorts. For you.”
He felt a curl of something in his stomach—not dread, not excitement, but a sharp, thrilling anticipation. He was on the map now. He knew how to read it.
“What sort of preparation?”
“Grooming,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Thematic grooming. Come on. Upstairs. The sacrament of the bathroom awaits.”
She took his hand, her fingers warm and firm. He followed, his tea left cooling on the table. They went upstairs, not to their bedroom, but into the white, steam-softened light of the main bathroom. Margot had already laid things out on the closed toilet lid: a pair of silver hairdressing scissors, a fresh razor, a shallow bowl, a small brush, a towel, and a tube of something emerald green.
“Right then,” she said, businesslike. “Strip from the waist down and pop on the edge of the bath.”
He complied. The porcelain was cold against his skin. He was soft, exposed, the aftermath of the afternoon still evident. Margot stood before him, studying the landscape. She picked up the scissors.
“We’re going for a definitive shape,” she explained, her focus absolute. “A Yuletide triangle. An upward-pointing fir tree, if you will. It needs to be neat. Libby’s a perfectionist.”
She began to snip, the cold metal pressing against his skin. He watched the familiar hair fall in dark clumps onto the towel she’d spread on the floor. She worked with surprising delicacy, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. The intimate, clinical sound of the scissors filled the quiet room. She shaped a rough, wide triangle above his penis, leaving the base growth untouched.
“Now, the tricky bit,” she murmured, picking up the razor and a can of shaving foam. She shook the can, the rattle loud, and dispensed a dollop of white into her palm. The smell of aloe and artificial clean cut through the air. She smoothed the foam over the shaved areas, her touch firm and efficient.
The first drag of the razor was a cold shock, followed by a strange, smooth vulnerability. He held his breath. She worked with the precision of a topiarist, her free hand stretching his skin taut. He watched the clear paths emerge on his body, the definition of the triangle becoming sharp and startling.
“There,” she said, rinsing the razor under the tap. “The base shape. Now for the fun part.”
She wiped away the residual foam with a warm, damp flannel. The skin beneath was pale, sensitive, utterly strange to him. She picked up the tube of emerald green. ‘ColourFresh! Temporary Hair Wax’, the label read.
“Non-toxic, washes out in a few weeks,” she said, squeezing a thick, gel-like blob of vibrant green onto the brush. “Hold still.”
The gel was cool. The brush tickled as she began to paint the stubble within the triangular shape. She worked it in thoroughly, coating every strand. The color was absurdly bright, a cartoonish forest green. The faint, chemical smell of floral perfume and ammonia rose between them.
“It needs five minutes to set,” she said, sitting back on her heels to admire her work. A giggle escaped her. “Oh, Rupert. It’s wonderfully silly. It really is a little Christmas tree.”
He looked down. The perfect, green triangle pointed upwards from his pubic bone. It was ridiculous. It was humiliating. It was, somehow, hysterically funny. A laugh bubbled up in his chest, tired and unhinged, and he let it out. Margot joined him, her laughter echoing off the tiles.
“Right, right,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Almost done. The pièce de résistance.”
From the pocket of the rugby shirt, she produced the familiar, hateful object: the black plastic chastity cage. It looked smaller in the bright bathroom light, a trivial thing. But its meaning was vast.
“Advent is a time of preparation,” she said, her voice softening, taking on a ceremonial tone. “Of anticipation. Santa needs a full sack to unload on Christmas Eve, doesn’t he? So we’re going to save it all up. For Libby.”
She guided him into the device. The fit was snug, familiar now from Halloween. The click of the small padlock as it snapped shut was the loudest sound in the house. It was a sound of finality, of assignment.
He looked at himself in the mirrored cabinet door. A middle-aged man, pale and half-naked on the side of a bath, sporting a neatly dyed green pubic triangle and locked in a chastity cage. The image should have been one of utter degradation. But the man in the reflection felt a bizarre sense of pride. He had followed the map. He was prepared.
Margot stood and kissed his forehead. “My good boy,” she whispered. “Twenty-four days. Think you can manage?”
He looked from the weird, festive badge on his body to the earnest, loving mischief in his wife’s eyes. He thought of the gold star on the 24th, of Libby wrapped in fairy lights, of the secret, culminating gift of himself.
He nodded, the cage feeling less like a prison and more like a promise. “I can manage.”